Is this advertisement real? It's a Microsoft ad supposedly shown in a New Zealand CS class, but I can't find any evidence of it elsewhere. I'm pretty pissed if it is. [more inside]posted by kcm at 11:34 PM PST - 27 comments

I have three (linked) questions: According to this page, On the Road was adapted to radio for France Culture. I'd like to get my hands on a recording of this. I looked for a while, but Radio France doesn't seem to provide a way to buy radio shows on disc, and it looks like it was only aired once. [more inside]posted by devilsbrigade at 10:21 PM PST - 3 comments

PacificNW/Food Filter: Best walk-in outlets for artisan bread in Seattle or Portland areas; gonna be up there over the weekend and want to bring home some chewy-crusty-soury-airy loaves. In the Poilane/Balthazar mold... Thanks! posted by dpcoffin at 3:51 PM PST - 16 comments

Can anyone suggest a simple, cheap invoicing software for a one-person service biz like mine? Nothing fancy, please. I just need it to track invoices, aging and payments. Most important: it has to be simple enough that even a financial doofus like me can use it. posted by wordwhiz at 2:52 PM PST - 16 comments

I was listening to WFMU a few years ago and I heard this insane fake news report type thing. A reporter in a helicopter is covering a car crash that slowly builds and builds until it becomes apocalyptic (possibly there's an alien attack). He stays perfectly calm through the whole thing. posted by aiko at 2:25 PM PST - 7 comments

Help me get started as a freelance copywriter. I have one ad under my belt that I created for the company that I work for (I'm not in the marketing department but was lucky enough to lend my talent). The marketing department is now run under a different manager and the opportunity for more is no longer there. The ad appeared on the back cover of several magazines. That's it...one ad for my portfolio. What is the best way to build my portfolio as a writer? How do I gain business and experience with an extremely slim portfolio? Someone once said that I should go back to school and try to build it through projects. This isn't really an option and I'm really not looking for any more education. Any advice is appreciated. posted by ieatwords at 1:20 PM PST - 7 comments

I'm somewhat of a professional computer guy but even I am totally mystified by the current state of Intel and AMD processors. Can someone hip to the latest explain why chips are suddenly only going 1.8Ghz again, which chips from Intel are powerful enough for HD playback, and what, if any, good a 64 bit processor does for today? [more inside]posted by mathowie at 11:16 AM PST - 23 comments

A few months back NPR had a story about the budget airline Jet Blue using booking agents who work from home. Does anyone know of other companies with employees doing computer work from home? I have a friend in New Jersey who's a single mom with no transportation who's also limited in her job options because of the high cost of child care and limited marketable skills. I'd like to know what home bound job opportunities exist for someone in this predicament. Any other suggestions for job options would be appreciated. posted by TheManticore at 10:11 AM PST - 13 comments

I want personal recommendations for carwashes in Boston/Metro West. I like the kind where I put money in and get to soap up my car myself. But I will consider other kinds as long as you tell me that they are very effective. (I have been dissatisfied with conveyor/brushless carwashes in the past and I hate to waste money.) posted by Mayor Curley at 10:08 AM PST - 12 comments

Recommended data recovery places in New York City, specifically Manhattan? It shouldn't be a huge problem, but I don't want to just pick a name from the Yellow Pages. There is, of course, [more inside]posted by booksandlibretti at 9:29 AM PST - 11 comments

It just occurred to me that the spot on your scalp that receives the focus of the force of the water in a shower coincides with the spot where hair loss in MPB first appears? Is this just a coincidence? posted by garbo at 8:07 AM PST - 40 comments

Is there an application that will run on a desktop that will record the number of times a button is clicked, the time and date that it is clicked, and will export that information into an Excel spreadsheet? [more inside]posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:27 AM PST - 12 comments

Unitarian Universalism - is it for atheists/non-theists/skeptics/secular humanists who want a sense of community, or is it really a gathering place for people of different faiths to find common ground? [more inside]posted by tom_g at 6:57 AM PST - 49 comments

How can I easily splice together small video clips? I have Premiere, but it's rather cumbersome and I'm not so good yet at getting the compression right when I export. Are there any really simple programs like VirtualDub that can paste clips together? posted by zardoz at 4:37 AM PST - 4 comments

To celebrate this day of days, we're having a little pancake party. Can you recommend some nice simple pancake fillings/toppings, both savoury and sweet? [more inside]posted by biffa at 2:51 AM PST - 43 comments

February 27

Three months ago, I had a myomectomy. I've recovered fine in terms of the way I feel physically, but I still have some concerns about the appearance of my scar. [more inside]posted by hazyjane at 11:53 PM PST - 12 comments

I have a Gmail account and a university email account (IMAP), both configured through OSX's Mail (the IMAP is only for sending mail; all incoming mail comes through the Gmail account). Lately, none of my email has been showing up in Mail (I know this because I've started keeping Gmail Notifier on the menubar as a double-check). It's not just that it takes a while to collect; it just never actually appears in my Mail.app inbox. I've double checked all my settings against Google's instructions, and even removed and re-added the mailbox.
Any ideas as to what could have gone wrong and how I could fix it? posted by rossination at 11:45 PM PST - 4 comments

FilmFilter: I recently found this site which is one guy's chronicling of various "numbers stations" throughout a period of several years. On the site, he mentions the movie "Vanilla Sky." [more inside]posted by Brittanie at 9:13 PM PST - 24 comments

Dermatology filter - My fiancée is a very fair skinned (I call her translucent) Irish girl. When ever she gets nervous, exercises or otherwise flustered she gets blotchy red spots. We are getting married in a year and she doesn’t want to be red and white spotted for the big day. Anyone know about this and or have any suggestions? [more inside]posted by meta x zen at 8:31 PM PST - 17 comments

Things to know about starting a technology based non-profit catering to other non-profits, individuals and struggling small businesses in Ontario, Canada [more inside]posted by saraswati at 7:29 PM PST - 7 comments

Schoolyard game identification: Everyone gathers around one spot, and one player bounces/throws a playground ball as high as they can (and shouts the name of the game?). While the ball is in the air, everyone else runs out from the center. When the person in the center catches the ball, they shout, "Stop!" and everyone has to hold their place. Then the person in the middle tries to hit someone with the ball. What game is this, and what are the rest of the rules? posted by stopgap at 6:01 PM PST - 20 comments

Anyone know of any good programs for research paper/thesis writing? One that automates your end/footnote and in-text notation after loading in your bibliography/references?
I will be writing a long and involved research paper and any program that helps me to format and note my references in the body of the paper would help so much! posted by psususe at 5:32 PM PST - 20 comments

My husband is a German citizen and has lived in the US for the last 25 years. For about 20 years, he has had a Green Card (resident alien). Last year he petitioned to become a US citizen (with dual German citizenship) and he has yet to hear from the government on his petition. He needs help to find out how to contact someone with answers to his questions. [more inside]posted by bluesky43 at 3:50 PM PST - 14 comments

There was a game I played in elementary school which we called "Pomp." At my school we had a sand field. Weird, I know. One guy would stand in front of everybody and yell "Pomp" and then every­body'd charge towards the other side of the sand and the 'pomp'-yelling guy would try to tackle somebody. Kind of a smearthequeer thing. [more inside]posted by punkbitch at 3:38 PM PST - 34 comments

I'm trying to remember a metal song with the lyric "I hate humanity and I wouldn't hesitate to kill." I'd have sworn it was Edge of Sanity, or Carcass, but no dice. Probably mid-90s vintage; almost certainly a growling vocalist; I'm pretty sure this was the opening line. posted by Wolfdog at 2:40 PM PST - 5 comments

Why does Dreamweaver MX 2004 suck so bad in mac 10.4.4? I'm trying to create a very simple page with one style sheet. Dreamweaver renders the page completely incorrectly, with divs and images in all the wrong places. [more inside]posted by captainscared at 2:33 PM PST - 7 comments

Design metafilterites: If you had $100-150 to spend on a thank you gift for someone who is an acclaimed and famous graphic designer what would you get? [more inside]posted by jeremias at 2:27 PM PST - 29 comments

I went to the Arlington Racetrack in Illinois last year (my first time at the races). One of the items on sale at the gift shop was a black and white photo of a horse racing along a long length of track. It measured something like 6" x 72" (yes, about 6 feet wide) and was priced at about $250. I assume it was made of photos seamlessly "stitched" together. Where can I find a similar photo (framed or not) online? I'm not concerned about the horse or the location it was shot, I just think it would look great hanging in my living room posted by sharksandwich at 2:01 PM PST - 9 comments

In the movie The Conversation, Gene Hackman has a sonic surveillance device (a directional microphone?) which, when pointed at distant people, enabled him to tune in to their conversation. This made me think how interesting it could be to own such a device and use it to tune in to conversations other people are having in their car as you pass them on the freeway. Is this possible? posted by forallmankind at 1:58 PM PST - 22 comments

A friend noticed that self-linking Amazon links in his Amazon blog included "ref=ase_artandlies-20" in the url. That's definitely not his referral id, publisher, booktitle, username, or anything else he could connect to himself or his book. Any idea what artandlies is about? [more inside]posted by davebug at 12:58 PM PST - 13 comments

I caused a very small car accident last month (no damage to the other car). I was required to report in court. Rather than just paying a fine, because I'm under 21 they are requiring me to go through this program called Teens Learning Control. It consists of lots of 4 hour seminars, 1 test, and 8 hours of community service. I'm 19, a full time college student, and also working full-time as a web designer in a design firm. I have no time to do any of this and the whole situations is ridiculous. I'm not asking to completely get off scott free. Why can't I just pay a fine. What are my options? Any Advice? I have to report back to court on march 30th with the program completed. posted by icespide at 12:40 PM PST - 56 comments

How do I write off my defunct business partnership on my taxes? I ended a 2 year self employment partnership (incorporated LLC) August of this year, walking away with around $8k in personally liable loans, as well as racking up another $5K after my car was repossessed.
I want to know how best to claim this loss on my taxes. [more inside]posted by daHIFI at 11:57 AM PST - 4 comments

Can you suggest some good, artful, compelling but extremely obscure films? By extremely obscure I mean less than 30 votes (approximately) on imdb.com (or not listed at all). Availability on DVD is not necessary. [more inside]posted by bobo123 at 10:32 AM PST - 43 comments

Tips for an engaged couple merging their finances?
What are some strategies that have been successful in merging your finances? What has not? We're looking to save for common goals and equally contribute towards our household and food expenses, but also have some autonomy with our money so we can buy our own things or treats every so often without feeling accountable to one another. [more inside]posted by FearTormento at 10:31 AM PST - 31 comments

Where can I find graphics such as the ones used by www.xplane.com I am working on my own presentation, and would like to use Visio 2003 to put together cool slides. posted by bright77blue at 9:56 AM PST - 6 comments

I've fallen in love with music compilations and boxed sets. From the new Nuggets box to Night Train to Nashville to No Thanks, I'm just cuckoo. There are so many, though, in so many different genres, it's difficult to seperate out what's really worthwhile. Their cost makes blind purchasing too dicey for my tastes. So I come to Mefi: what music compilations or box sets can you recommend? posted by boombot at 7:41 AM PST - 39 comments

I received a mailed notice for when to appear in court to challenge a traffic ticket. I have subsequently lost that notice. I'm in Toronto, Ontario. How can I find out when I'm supposed to appear in court? [more inside]posted by lemur at 7:17 AM PST - 1 comment

[IncomeTaxFilter] I get paychecks from three employers. No matter how I adjust my withholding, I always seem to owe at the end of the year. I've tried taking the IRS's advice as to how to adjust withholding, but with no luck. Is there some reliable formula I can use to figure out how much I should ask to have withheld from my weekly paycheck? [more inside]posted by anastasiav at 5:57 AM PST - 10 comments

February 26

Does anyone have any experience with getting auto upholstery done in Tijuana, Mexico? How about tips for the brave soul willing to try it? Any particular establishments? [more inside]posted by RikiTikiTavi at 10:14 PM PST - 1 comment

Video from "120 Minutes" circa 1991? An irish band I believe, video was shot in black and white, and the one scene that really stands out is that there are a group of guys singing around a fire with a horse galloping in the background. [more inside]posted by Iamtherealme at 10:04 PM PST - 27 comments

Experiences with software raid with external USB drives? XP and/or OSX? Ever have problems with the drives spinning down when not in use and the raid set breaking in the process? Does this shorten the life of the drives in any as compared to mounting internal of a case using IDE or SATA? posted by joshgray at 9:23 PM PST - 5 comments

[Tax Filter] Can you deduct anything related to doing volunteer work? For example, can you deduct gas money while driving for volunteer work or can you deduct the cost of an international aid trip that you go on? Does anything like that count? posted by phaedrus441 at 7:32 PM PST - 6 comments

I'm having serious doubts about my 8-year relationship, but my SO is going through a really rough time right now--& may even be suicidal. I think I want out, but I'm afraid it could drive him over the edge. [more inside]posted by anonymous at 7:23 PM PST - 32 comments

I hold a UK passport. It now contains a US (C1/D) visa. Due to a clerical error during the application, the visa lists my sex incorrectly. Is this going to be a problem in the event that I actually need to travel to the USA? posted by Lebannen at 7:11 PM PST - 14 comments

Travelling across a time zone by air is ambiguous. It's hard to tell exactly when it happens. When travelling across time zones by air, when does the time change? Especially across multiple zones. I've noticed that I never see or hear a reference to the time while onboard. For instance, a movie might start at "fifteen minutes after takeoff," but not at 4:45pm. [more inside]posted by Jeff Howard at 6:28 PM PST - 20 comments

I'm preparing a business card for a friend and they want this character [inside] on it. Can I get confirmation that this actually says 'hello' [more inside]posted by tellurian at 3:40 PM PST - 11 comments

Hello all,
I am having trouble find a place that rents out digital cameras.
I am looking to either rent a Nikon D50, D70, or D100 or possibly, a Canon Digital Rebel XT. (Renting time-frame, 2-3 days.) I am wondering if anyone had any experience with renting high-end digital cams such as these and which place I should trust. I called up a couple of places where I live (Boston, MASS) and none of them offered this. posted by cheero at 3:18 PM PST - 5 comments

Where is all my email? I just installed Windows XP Pro, Firefox, and Thunderbird on a brand-new hard drive. I then copied the entire contents of the C:\Documents and Settings\Username (including hidden files) from the old hard drive onto the new one. Hallelujah, all my cookies, bookmarks, and extensions in Firefox work like a charm. Thunderbird, however .... [more inside]posted by ZakDaddy at 3:03 PM PST - 6 comments

Where can I find a partner to help me build a business based on a Web service? I'm 18, I'm not going to be in college for at least a year, and I can fund the venture for 6+ months out-of-pocket. But the programming is far too much work for just one person. [more inside]posted by jbb7 at 2:35 PM PST - 9 comments

Why do characters in cartoons read books backwards, flipping pages from (their) left to right? It's always bugged me since I was a kid, and I always put it down to shoddy animation. Then, I noticed Meatwad reading a book backwards on a recent ATHF. What gives? Is it just some weird industry convention, or am I missing something? posted by paul_smatatoes at 1:08 PM PST - 27 comments

Scent filter: My favorite scent of all time has been discontinued! I was a huge fan of the Heaven line from the Gap. It appears to have been discontinued. What other scents - particularly in a lotion - should I try? For reference, the Gap described Heaven as "simple bouquet of pure white blossoms." posted by fancypants at 1:03 PM PST - 11 comments

For years, I've had mild soreness at various places on the right side of my body: jaw, shoulder, hand, hip, knee, and foot. Meanwhile, the left side of my body feels perfect. [more inside]posted by eighth_excerpt at 12:08 PM PST - 16 comments

I have an old Dell PC (Optiplex GX1--"Opti" for "the eye," and "plex" for the . . . oh, never mind), and bought a new Dell. I'm trying to transfer files from old to new, but I think the lack of a hi-speed USB port in the old Dell is hindering my experience (more inside--really!). [more inside]posted by Kibbutz at 11:09 AM PST - 14 comments

Going to Hawaii in the start of November for my Honeymoon...9 days I think. I love to Hike and all that fun stuff, my fiance will hike but likes to do lighter things due partially to a heart murmur (she also likes to shop). I get bored just laying on the beach, she has a high stress job so I think she needs some relaxation time. So any suggestions? [more inside]posted by UMDirector at 10:20 AM PST - 13 comments

I want to scan two pages from a 1952 picture book and post them on my web site. I've read a good bit about copyright and fair use, and I think this falls under fair use, but I want to be, say, 90% certain. [more inside]posted by snortlebort at 9:15 AM PST - 8 comments

Calling all chefs: How can I "shred" raw chicken to re-create the spicy shredded chicken from my local Sichuan joints? Is it just a matter of slicing the breast into thin matchsticks? That sounds arduous and also sounds like it would produce stiff strips of chicken instead of the tender floppy shreds I'm trying to copy. posted by CunningLinguist at 8:38 AM PST - 19 comments

Can I browse Amazon totally by user rating? I've often thought it would be really neat to see what books on Amazon have 5 stars but also have the MOST number of recommendations. They're probably incredible books. Can I do this? posted by blahtsk at 7:48 AM PST - 9 comments

My router logs show that I have been under what looks like a sustained low level DOS attack for quite a while now. An example entry is:
1 Blocked by DoS protection 10.69.0.1
I assume the IP is spoofed because it is a reserved IP and I am on a 192.168.*.* local network. What can I find out or determine about the attack? What tools and resources are available? posted by srboisvert at 4:17 AM PST - 5 comments

Guerilla Marketing - I created a website as a lark that has become quite popular. All this early last week. I'm looking to compile a list of tools and techniques to push the popularity (without spending any money of course). What would you suggest? [more inside]posted by dhacker at 3:23 AM PST - 9 comments

February 25

BeautifulGameFilter - Regarding the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. What time of year will it be? Since it's the Southern Hemisphere will it be in Jan or Feb? Yes, I'm planning a trip. posted by UncleHornHead at 10:55 PM PST - 2 comments

On our property there's a rather substantial brook running through it, which runs year round and doesn't freeze over. It's probably too wide for a traditional undershot waterwheel (at least 12 feet across at its most narrow), to supply some alternate power to our house, but maybe there's something else that could make the most of the constant flowing water? posted by Gudlyf at 8:57 PM PST - 16 comments

I am looking for a particular comedian. I saw this guy, on HBO, perhaps, about 15 years ago. His comedic style was extremely dry, and his one prop was a martini glass. [more inside]posted by thebrokedown at 7:55 PM PST - 21 comments

Script-fu for arbitary text: Across applications (but especially in text editors) I want to be able to (a) right click on a bit of selected text (b) have the usual contextual menu pop up upon doing so, but with options to (c) send said text to an arbitrary script (perl, python, whatever) and (d) potentially have the selected text replaced by script results, if the context is right. What are my best options for both the Mac and Windows? [more inside]posted by namespan at 7:16 PM PST - 10 comments

I know that cookies may be automatically and surreptitiously installed on my computer when I arrive at a webpage, but what about spyware/malware/virus ? [more inside]posted by studentguru at 6:20 PM PST - 13 comments

Two seemingly unrelated design/illustration questions:
1. What are some of the fonts that have associated with soft drink companies have used over the years? I realize those logos are hand-drawn, but some, like that for New Coke, seem to have clear typeface antecedents.
2. Where can I find vector-based maps of various states? Specifically, North Dakota. [more inside]posted by blueshammer at 3:41 PM PST - 4 comments

I've heard the FBI employ a certain style of fighting/self defense that incorporates the three stooges (slapping and whatnot) and is meant to humiliate the opponent as well as subdue them. I'm REALLY interested in reading more about this... [more inside]posted by rinkjustice at 2:56 PM PST - 14 comments

Thinking of abandoning Palm OS for Windows Mobile, and Windows for Mac. Can I still sync? Please let's avoid a four-way fanboy war here. Just asking about syncing. [more inside]posted by kookoobirdz at 2:42 PM PST - 7 comments

I'm burning a CD of a playlist in iTunes and am having trouble getting the levels to match. Even though I use the iTunes "Sound Check" setting (which supposedly evens out levels), when I play my burned CD back, the levels are all over the place.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a Mac OS X program that could help me out?
Thanks! posted by jmcnally at 2:23 PM PST - 17 comments

I am looking for some anime that is designed for an adult to watch. I am not talking about adult content such as nudity, cursing and extreme violence, but rather the intelligence of the anime. Violence, nudity, and cursing is fine one way or the other. Are there any anime out there that talk about philosophy, or politics, etc? The closest movie I can give as an example isn't actually an anime, although it is animated: Waking Life [more inside]posted by JokingClown at 12:54 PM PST - 60 comments

Do you cook angus beef differently from normal beef? I just bought some angus beef yesterday. I made some roast with angus beef the way I do with regular beef, and it didn't turn out how normal beef usually does.. does angus beef have any special properties I need to be aware of? Angus beef chuck eye shoulder vs beef chuck eye shoulder, or angus steak vs normal steak? posted by lpctstr; at 12:33 PM PST - 7 comments

Why do we look upwards or into the distance when trying to recall something, answer a difficult question or solve a puzzle?
This arose from a word game we were playing in the office, during which I pointed out that those taking part were all displaying this behavior. Best guess was that it was perhaps some instinctive thing - automatically scanning the horizon for predators or prey whilst engaged in another task. posted by Dr Phibes at 12:00 PM PST - 16 comments

For physics papers, all the recent research is put onto http://www.arxiv.org/ Are there equivalent repositories for other disciplines, especially the social sciences? posted by apathy0o0 at 11:45 AM PST - 19 comments

I'm having a Texas Independence Day party this week to introduce my English friends to the joys of Texas. General party hosting advice and advice more specific to this party requested inside. [more inside]posted by grouse at 10:12 AM PST - 14 comments

A couple of decades ago, a non-Kosher deli near my work (Long Beach, Ca) had these pickled (pork) sausages in jars, along side jars of eggs and pigs feet. On a dare, I tried a sausage, then ate them for lunch every day. They were the size of brats, but made like Italian, in that they had fennel seed. I'm in Tucson now, but would still like to know if anyone has knowledge to obtaining any, or has had them. posted by JABof72 at 8:25 AM PST - 1 comment

I received an e-mail claiming to have found my ad on a personals site for people over 40 (I'm 27). Is this mistaken identity, or some clever new form of spam? [more inside]posted by solotoro at 7:30 AM PST - 8 comments

I'm trying to help someone fix her computer. She rebooted when her system got bogged down, and then when restarting, somehow logged into an account called Sarah.SARAH instead of just Sarah. [more inside]posted by voidcontext at 6:50 AM PST - 25 comments

I accidentally dropped a Pyrex pan of lasagna on my glass cooktop-- the cooktop completely shattered. (The pan, naturally, hasn't got a mark on it.) It doesn't look like any of the underlying structures are damaged. What's the chance we could repair this ourselves? It's apparently at least a $300 repair, and we can't really afford that until maybe July, and I'd like to have a usable stove before them. I don't mind if it's ugly, we can always have it professionally replaced later on when we can afford it. Would this really be worth it? Or are we better off microwaving and baking for months? posted by Shoeburyness at 2:04 AM PST - 13 comments

February 24

I'm finishing up postproduction on a small digital video movie. I want to get a DLT tape storage system to back it up and send it off. However, I want to also use the same machine on my PC. [more inside]posted by clockworkjoe at 11:32 PM PST - 8 comments

What do you put in your PC card slot? Nowadays, many laptops come with stuff like Wi-Fi and flash card readers built-in (as mine does), and it seems like every peripheral is connected through USB. Eight years ago my modem lived in the PC card slot. But is there anything cool and/or useful I can do with it today? posted by Nikolai at 10:59 PM PST - 11 comments

Every time i see statistics like this one which list market share for various search engines, I'm somewhat surprised. According to the article/graph, in mid-2005, Google had a 36.5% market share in online searches, with Yahoo and MSN at 30.5% and 15%, respectively. But on every website I've managed for myself or others (and on the sites of everyone I've ever spoken to about this), Google consistently accounts for 80 - 90% of all their search referrals. So, what accounts for the discrepancy? Is it just because my evidence is anecdotal, or is there something special going on in which Yahoo/MSN searchers get sidetracked before ever reaching their search results? [more inside]posted by helios at 7:04 PM PST - 18 comments

Help me remember a book please. It is a science fiction story about two young scientists that create a superweapon that can shoot down missiles. [more inside]posted by meta87 at 6:16 PM PST - 2 comments

We're looking at our first reception hall tomorrow for our upcoming wedding. Given that this is our first foray into these types of affairs what are some important questions you asked, or wished you had asked prior to scoping out locations? [more inside]posted by purephase at 5:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Summer's coming!! It's pool time! My problem is I want to set up an outdoor stereo system, without actually having a system out in the elements. [more inside]posted by matty at 3:37 PM PST - 14 comments

I have a Mac (10.4.5), my Dad has a PC (XP Home). We both have cable modems. We want to video chat. What apps can we use together? Bonus points if I can continue to use iChatAV. [more inside]posted by Wild_Eep at 2:45 PM PST - 11 comments

I'm wondering if writing "dreamhomesolution4u.com is marketed heavily by using spam." on a personal site should be enough to land me in trouble. [more inside]posted by jragon at 2:33 PM PST - 14 comments

There is an Indian snack that is popular in North India, especially Lucknow or New Delhi, called Sem Ka Beej (also spelled Same Ka Beej, or Sem Ke Bej, etc). Does anyone know of a place in the U.S. where I can buy some? (pics included) [more inside]posted by ww at 2:29 PM PST - 6 comments

Identify This Picture. Help! I just moved into my new place. There's a big graphic-novel style cutout on the wall (pic included). Who is she? [more inside]posted by nafrance at 2:09 PM PST - 14 comments

(SongFilter) Dear mother recently lamented that she could die happy if only she could find a song (perhaps from her childhood in the 50s?) that names all the presidents. A key lyric seems to be "Doin my homework with you." An old woman's hyperbole to be sure, but we do try to please our parents. [more inside]posted by Hal Mumkin at 12:48 PM PST - 15 comments

I really like Springsteen's Nebraska. I've never been able to put my finger on why I like it so much and why it moves me: maybe it is the bare bones orchestration. The lyrical narratives. The dusty simplicity of it. But I like it a lot. What label should that sound be called? What else is like Nebraska that I should try out? [more inside]posted by dios at 11:43 AM PST - 42 comments

I've been searching for a while now and it seems to me that BlackBerry is very limited when it comes to programs. I also have a distaste for how it differs from Outlook. I'm starting to wish I had purchased something more compatible with Windows software. From my understanding, there is a void of any BlackBerry opensource software? I'm a student so don't have the cash to buy overpriced programs. If anyone knows of anything that might work with BlackBerry, I would appreciate suggestions. I'm on the 7250. posted by Knigel at 11:20 AM PST - 4 comments

Knowing Explorer is no longer being upgraded for macs, how can I best assure browser compatibility across platforms (from a previewing standpoint)? [more inside]posted by j.p. Hung at 11:00 AM PST - 11 comments

How much energy/CO2 debt in used/incurred in the production of a new car? The fpp about the group who pledged to buy nothing new (which I can't find) got me thinking: some consumerism is spurred by the idea that newer products are more energy efficient than the older ones. But new products may use a lot of energy in their production and the break-even point may be beyond their lifespan. [more inside]posted by 445supermag at 10:52 AM PST - 11 comments

Help me deal with email: I have a couple domain names, and I get obscene amounts of spam and garbage email. I'd like to setup a system to help deal with all of it, but I'm not very familiar with server-side email setup beyond the basics. [more inside]posted by delmoi at 9:04 AM PST - 15 comments

70/80s sci-fi/horror movie filter: Does anyone remember a movie that was broadcast on network television in the very early 80s that involved claymation dinosaurs attacking a house and aliens that entered the house through a key-hole (?). [more inside]posted by lyam at 8:20 AM PST - 4 comments

Selfabuse filter. I used to smoke 2 cigarettes every night before bed and I quit recently. I did fine for the first week, but looking back at the past 2 weeks, I've started drinking more at night, popping Vicodin, or taking the odd Benadryl before bed. So clearly I have some strong need to abuse myself in some way before the day's out - has anyone else done this, and if so, how did you deal with it? [more inside]posted by anonymous at 7:49 AM PST - 26 comments

Four nights in the Bahamas! Any recommendations for a mildly affordable place to stay that may be a little quieter than the huge resorts on Paradise Island? [more inside]posted by allan at 7:14 AM PST - 2 comments

I am getting pretty serious into the vfx industry and wanted to know where to look for accountant to deal with my taxes as a freelance artist... [more inside]posted by matthelm at 6:33 AM PST - 1 comment

How can i become more easy going and fake in a business environment. Im a very loyal person to my friends but find in business you need to develop a kind of fake persona to get on with others. [more inside]posted by indio1919 at 2:43 AM PST - 60 comments

Looking for songs about math! My girlfriend's sister just got into a Ph.D. program for mathematics and we're making her a mix CD to help celebrate. Poppy indie rock especially good. [more inside]posted by hydrophonic at 9:52 PM PST - 68 comments

This idea for a visual effect has occured to me, and I want to implement it, just to see what it's like. I know Perl and C/C++, but I am heavily biased towards a *nix environment. Description of video transformation inside... [more inside]posted by phrontist at 8:30 PM PST - 7 comments

I am moving into a IT Manager / CTO role for a company of about 200 people and am looking for advice, books, and websites on how best to manage a IT department. Most of the stuff I have found is geared toward very large organizations. Implementing ITIL and SOA is a little hardcore for an organization of my size. I am looking for straight-forward best practices for things like asset management / inventory, desktop management, security / audit, helpdesk, etc. etc. Anybody out there already doing this successfully? Any good blogs or websites other than TechRepublic. I am looking for real-world solutions and not a bunch of frameworks and jargon. posted by jasondigitized at 5:36 PM PST - 8 comments

Looking for taxi/vehicle dispatch software. Preferably web-based with scheduling/reservations built in as well as vehicle tracking of some sort. I'm looking mainly for personal experience or recommendations. posted by jacobsee at 5:11 PM PST - 1 comment

Does anyone know any group teachers for club dance in Los Angeles. I'm tired of moving like a white guy on the floor. Basically I've never been a good club dancer and it's kept me from going to clubs. I've decided to do something about it. But I don't want to take individual lessons. For one thing, it'd just be too weird dancing with some teacher one on one. For another I've got nowhere in my apt for them to teach me. (I live in a studio).
So what I want is somewhere in LA that kind of teaches a group 101 on "how to not look spastic on the dancefloor." Any suggestions? posted by rileyray3000 at 4:22 PM PST - 15 comments

I have a Martin Backpacker Guitar that I love. I bought it 2nd hand and haven't taken all that good care of it, so the back of the neck has a fair number of small dents (like it would get from being banged against sharp edges) in the wood. This looks crappy and is distracting when moving up and down the fretboard, especially using a slide.
What method could I use to fix theses nicks? I'm thinking some sort of wood-paste and fine sandpaper, but don't want it to come out looking like crap.
Please don't use brand names, as I'm in Chile and while I can probably find the same products, they'll have different names. posted by signal at 3:02 PM PST - 7 comments

Photoshop actions/scripts: I have a text file containing 100's of lines of text. Each line of text needs to be copied & pasted into a psd file, which will then be saved and exported as a gif.
So far, I haven't been able to find a tutorial on how to create an action or script to automate this process.
I've also tried a windows automation program, Autohotkey, without any luck.
Ideas? posted by masymas at 2:56 PM PST - 4 comments

I went $26 over on my bank account and the bank has charged me $110 in fees. If I pay them the $26 + say $20 extra then flee the country would there be any serious repercussions? [more inside]posted by anonymous at 2:06 PM PST - 30 comments

Does anyone else put shortcuts in particular spots on their desktop, to make it a brainless activity to run them? (Problem: When my resolution is changed, and icons get mixed up.) [more inside]posted by parma at 12:55 PM PST - 10 comments

I'd like to find a novice-friendly place in the Windsor area (I'm in SE michigan) where I could try out curling. Preferably somewhere with a bar. Other tips for new curlers appreciated, too. posted by yorick at 12:52 PM PST - 9 comments

Any way to gain access to a win XP box through a forced remote desktop (or another method?). Or even a network install (though that'd be hard, I don't dare lose anything on the HDD) of Linux? Oh, and I don't have a monitor (that's the root of the problem) [more inside]posted by TrueVox at 12:10 PM PST - 10 comments

Myself and three friends are going skiing at Squaw Valley next weekend and we're looking for a place to stay. We're flexible, but we'd like something cheap, close to Squaw, and preferably with internet access. Any recommendations? posted by pombe at 11:13 AM PST - 5 comments

Quick question for those of you with any knowledge of the subject:
Is it possible (by possible I mean legal) for an employer to change the pay structure for an employee from salaried but eligible for overtime pay to a salaried but not eligible for overtime? This is a case where working overtime is required by the job. This is in Illinois. [more inside]posted by mockjovial at 11:08 AM PST - 14 comments

This happened to me last week at O'Hare - and now, today, in LAX. I opened my laptop in the terminal and checked for wireless networks. I noticed that there was a "computer-to-computer" network called "Free Public Wifi" available. I didn't try to connect, because I know that such networks generally can't provide internet access if there's no other connection available.
Does this mean there are folks trying to socially engineer gullible wireless users? What could they gain? Would Windows be more vulnerable than Macs? AND how would a curious samaritan figure out who, amongst the dozen or more folks with open laptops in the vicinity, the culprit is? posted by soulbarn at 10:35 AM PST - 33 comments

Outlook 2003 filter: Simple question, what the heck is the difference between booking something as an attendee vs as a resource when planning a meeting? [more inside]posted by Cosine at 9:34 AM PST - 18 comments

My mom has a Gateway FPD1830 LCD monitor that has been sitting around her house for about a year or so not working. It died on her and she set it to the side in case she could find a place to repair it (its a nice 19" model). She's stopped looking and I'm getting close to needing a new monitor. Is there anywhere in Tampa, FL to get an LCD monitor repaired? Is it even fiscally reasonable to try and get the thing repaired? posted by Ikazuchi at 8:28 AM PST - 6 comments

Using concepts from economics as a way to understand/explain evolution -- Does anyone know any good online or print resources that develop or discuss this? [more inside]posted by jfwlucy at 8:16 AM PST - 6 comments

What kind of plant is this (or this or this.) It's a seven foot tall indoor houseplant that blooms these very sappy and strong smelling flowers every winter. It's sort of a palm-tree - but I have no idea. [more inside]posted by itchi23 at 8:10 AM PST - 8 comments

So I'm filling out the Trade Name Registration Form for my business, and field #6 is "Applicant's Title in Business Entity." I'm a sole proprietorship -- just me at home doing freelance web design -- so what do I put on this line? Do I have leeway to be witty or irreverent? [more inside]posted by brownpau at 7:37 AM PST - 8 comments

I've had my Powerbook G4 for just a touch under 3 years and i've aquired a healthy amount of personal files, photos, music, and work documents. Last night i had a scare with the drive, it failed to boot for the first time since i've had it. Feeling a tad twitchy about the reliability of my drive i ask: Is there a automated backup solution thats flexable enough for me... [more inside]posted by Nik_Doof at 2:10 AM PST - 9 comments

I want to start making music on my computer. I have no real experience in this field. Where is a good place to start: forums, tutorials that kind of thing? What software should i look into? posted by FidelDonson at 2:02 AM PST - 9 comments

February 22

It's been recently brought to my attention that I have no clue how to be a boyfriend. The unfortunate part of this relevation is that it was brought to my attention by my girlfriend... [more inside]posted by SpecialK at 10:47 PM PST - 70 comments

Does anyone know that actual location in Budapest of the restaurant that was used in the film, "Gloomy Sunday"? I checked on the IMDB site, and while it lists a number of locations in Budapest, it doesn't show which is the actual location of the restaurant. We loved this film and are planning to visit Budapest soon, and would love to go to this location. posted by vac2003 at 10:34 PM PST - 3 comments

On a 13 hour layover in the Moscow airport I met a Palestinian refugee who'd been living in the international territory inside customs for 11 months; later I learned about a refugee who's lived in Charles de Gaulle for over a decade. All this makes me curious about international territory: the space between disembarking the airplane & going through customs, & the empty fenced-off stretch between some national borders (I seem to remember Turkey & Syria have a large Syrian/Druze refugee population living between the borders & at the mercy of assistance from passing tourists, but I could be totally wrong). [more inside]posted by soviet sleepover at 9:36 PM PST - 12 comments

I'm looking for recommendations for hosting for a new Australian small business. Yes, I've searched the archives. Yes, I've read all the old hosting recommendation threads. [more inside]posted by obiwanwasabi at 9:34 PM PST - 7 comments

The muscle in the left side of my upper back, just below the shoulder blade, is always getting pulled and knotted. How do I manage it properly? [more inside]posted by Jase_B at 9:02 PM PST - 11 comments

Why have I suddenly started receiving a TON of spam - all with the subject line "Software" from what sounds like Groucho Marx characters (ie Unknowing G. Bottomfeeder)? [more inside]posted by davebush at 8:47 PM PST - 10 comments

What is some good software and hardware that can handle multiple channels of video/audio capture, compress the video in real time, and stream it over a Gigabit network? [more inside]posted by nickerbocker at 7:16 PM PST - 3 comments

Vegetarian in New Orleans. I will be there during Mardi Gras, and need to find some good chow. (The previous question tagged with vegetarian and New Orleans was pretty disappointing). I will be in Jefferson Parish, mainly, and on a pretty tight budget.
Also needed- recommendations for good record stores in the Big Easy. I will be there next week. posted by klangklangston at 6:09 PM PST - 11 comments

I'm a graduate student, living in a graduate dorm, and I need to purchase renters insurance. Which companies are student-friendly, reliable, and affordable? posted by rockstar at 6:02 PM PST - 17 comments

What classical music databases exist? I'm not looking for lists or even data. I am looking for relational database DDL that describes/implements a structure sufficient to describe/model classical music. Or, if you don't know of such a database, classical aficionados, give me advice on how to implement such a database. [more inside]posted by orthogonality at 5:06 PM PST - 14 comments

Is there any software that can limit the number of hours you spend at a certain domain, or with a certain piece of software? I want to be more productive, but don't want to go cold turkey on MeFi or Battlefield 2 (a video game). posted by parallax7d at 4:20 PM PST - 12 comments

Document scanner options. I have a need to scan a few double sided letter and A4 size documents on a reasonably regular basis. I find using a flat bed scanner very tedious. Options? [more inside]posted by bystander at 3:34 PM PST - 5 comments

My dad is turning 50 in May, and my mom wants to surprise him by taking the family on a cruise. I've always been of the opinion that the entire idea of a cruise is lame, boring, and for old people who can't do anything else. I'm trying to come up with better places to go for a week on $4000 (for four people), but I've only ever traveled by myself. [more inside]posted by borkingchikapa at 1:58 PM PST - 21 comments

On my sister's behalf: What is the best chance for my husband (and therefore me) to immigrate to B.C.? He is 53 (not good according to the Canadian point system), and has a great offer of work from a friend in Victoria who is a designer/builder of homes. My husband would be hired as a foreman, as he's a highly skilled and experienced carpenter, and is capable of managing and training crews. His formal education doesn't go beyond high school, his English language skills are good (but not his French), he has no criminal record, and he's in very good health. [more inside]posted by bricoleur at 1:25 PM PST - 19 comments

Anyone know how to get the Opera Mini browser working with T-Mobile's Internet Service? I can browse the web just fine with the built-in Motorola browser, but Opera Mini just says it can't find a working connection.
Thanks!
Tony posted by tonyballinger at 12:50 PM PST - 3 comments

I'm trying to find a link that was (I think) posted on MeFi 2 or 3 years back, but my searches have been fruitless. It was a flash 'game' that taught handy German taunts for lan parties. [more inside]posted by starscream at 12:01 PM PST - 3 comments

I've been given an assignment that involves encoding RFID smart tags into attendee badges for an event. What software should I be using to encode/print at the same time? [more inside]posted by Ekim Neems at 11:08 AM PST - 2 comments

Quicksilver / OS X shell junkies: How can I have Quicksilver run a shell script in the current (or a particular) terminal window? Alternately, how can I pipe the output of the script to a particular terminal window? [more inside]posted by tweebiscuit at 10:07 AM PST - 11 comments

There was a thing going around the net last year, a list of when and how lawyers bill in the billable hours practice. $100 for thinking about your case while on the golf course, etc. Does anyone remember this or know how I'd find it again? posted by onegreeneye at 9:04 AM PST - 1 comment

I have a bunch of 30 second to 1:45 video clips on my computer of various comedy bits and sports highlights. What I want to do is compile them into one big file.....Rather then have 15 one minute clips, I'd like to mesh em into one big 15 minute clip.... [more inside]posted by TwilightKid at 8:18 AM PST - 10 comments

Gather 'round ye Mefites,
come and listen to my song
about me and my laptop
and how BEST BUY done me wrong.
My laptop died while in their arms,
they claim she never cried,
my tale is a woeful one,
you bet there's[more inside]posted by sourwookie at 7:49 AM PST - 20 comments

IPod help for a friend....
Sorry if this was asked before, I looked but didn't see it...
My friend has an IPod Nano and her laptop died. She lost her ITunes folders but still has all the music on the device.
How can she get it back without having to re-purchase all the songs? She'd afraid that when she syncs again, everything will be gone. posted by keep it tight at 4:57 AM PST - 13 comments

Thinking seriously about professional (i.e. NOT over the counter Whitestrips, etc.) tooth whitening and am interested in hearing other people's experiences and recommendations... [more inside]posted by LGCNo6 at 3:26 AM PST - 13 comments

AirCards . . . Has anyone done a real comparison of the features, peformance, and cost of the different cards and the diferent plans? I'm sitting in an expensive hotel paying an additional $10 for HS cable access per day. I've decided to get an AirCard but I'm not sure which is best. posted by AJ at 2:02 AM PST - 4 comments

I want to create my own lamps that hang from the ceiling. I will create the shade, but I need to buy the socket with cord and plug. My plan is to sell these, so I'd like to say at least part of the lamp is UL listed. [more inside]posted by chadparker at 12:51 AM PST - 13 comments

Will over-the-counter anti-diuretics interfere with whatever my body is trying to do to fight off the nasty I ingested while down in Mexico? [more inside]posted by willnot at 11:04 PM PST - 12 comments

Hi, hoping some MS Excel or HTML wizards can help me out with this. The goal is as follows; format a list of domain names so I can publish them on a webpage with hyperlinks to their individual addresses (currently they are all in Excel with each domain occupying a single cell in a single row; they are currently formatted like this: "domain.com"). There are just to many to go through and add this to each one. [more inside]posted by Jhaus at 10:05 PM PST - 8 comments

What is the label for an entity or idea which began as nothing and came to have identity through its own fictionalisation? That is, notions diametrically opposed to 'simulacra' - in that the entity has no referent to begin with... [more inside]posted by 0bvious at 9:40 PM PST - 20 comments

My friend was just diagnosed with Graves Disease and the doctor decided it was so serious he should immediately get radioactive iodine treatment, and he was given a 16mCi pill today. So, apparently, he is very radioactive right now, and would set off Homeland Security terror alerts in airports if he walked through. [more inside]posted by extrabox at 8:51 PM PST - 16 comments

Im about to take on the 300+ Criterion Collection library: how can I narrow down which ones to start with? (more in a methods way, not in a naming movies way!) [more inside]posted by GleepGlop at 8:40 PM PST - 26 comments

Anonymity-online-filter: When using something like TOR (http://tor.eff.org/) to be "anonymous" online you modify browser settings; but there are many apps other than browsers that access the internet (Bittorrent, antivirus, etc.). Does TOR take care of these apps as well? Why, why not, etc.? posted by rumbles at 7:06 PM PST - 6 comments

My MS mouse will spontaneously fail, while in use. The USB plug claims that it has been unplugged, and the laser light turns off until it is plugged back in, and sometimes not even then. [more inside]posted by duende at 6:37 PM PST - 7 comments

I've been thinking about strategy a lot recently, and one of the things I stumbled upon that isn't really well covered is the impact of cultural phenomena on attitudes and actions. Are there general ideas in a culture's history that leads them to their view of the world today?
I wonder, because different cultures have characteristic qualities that people pick up on. Where did these come from, and can we perform predictive analysis based on these characteristics? [more inside]posted by arrhn at 6:04 PM PST - 7 comments

There is something quite fundamental about informal writing that i just don't get. I find myself rewriting e-mails a number of times before it sounds spontaneous, and it still doesn't flow. Maybe its due to a background of formal reporting or too much conscious interference, but i think i'm missing something. How do i stop thinking and write more spontaneously? [more inside]posted by ugrndhg at 4:28 PM PST - 46 comments

I have a problem. I just downloaded a couple of programs that are practical for my everyday online commuting. Now when I open internet explorer it only opens the page halfway when I want it to be fully maximized. Anyone knows how to do that? posted by Gabe014 at 4:03 PM PST - 6 comments

PuppyFilter: A friend of my Mother's needs advice on how to train and deal with an abused puppy, and also her son & son's girlfriend whom the dog actually belongs to. [more inside]posted by Meredith at 3:57 PM PST - 16 comments

I'm about to buy my first house and I'm shopping around for a mortgage. The best deal so far is a mortgage where the lender pays for the mortgage insurance. I'm aware of using 80/XX loans to avoid paying PMI but I've never come across Lender Paid PMI. What exactly is it and what's the catch? [more inside]posted by schwa at 3:50 PM PST - 7 comments

Does anyone remember the name of a site where you would enter your achievements and then it would round-robin everyone's achievements and users would compare the two and vote on the better one? Kind of lot of "hot or not" for your life. posted by FeldBum at 3:06 PM PST - 2 comments

ForgottenAnimationFilter - a man goes for a walk every Sunday. His house and shed feel abandoned, so they decide to follow him (on legs). I remember this chap walking along oblivious to the fact that right behind him are two walking buildings. [more inside]posted by Grangousier at 2:59 PM PST - 2 comments

There is an oldies song, probably from the 50's, and I would consider it a makeout song. There is a male solo singer with backup harmonies.
The main lyric is "I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you"
The first "I" begins as a pick-up note to even triplets.
I|love you I|love you I|love you I|love you I|love you I|love you I|love you
And that last love you is duple.
6|565|532|121|161|232|161|32
The 6 in measures 4 and 6 is low, below the tonic.
HELP! posted by abbyladybug at 2:31 PM PST - 8 comments

How does one connect a USB stick to an old laptop without a USB port? I have an IBM Thinkpad 701C, and even with the port replicator I'd be out of luck. Is there perhaps some way to do this using PCMCIA card? posted by sholdens12 at 2:15 PM PST - 12 comments

How do you change the language setting in FileMaker? Functions like MonthName() are outputting in French and we want them to output in English. (FileMaker database originated on a French computer but is now being hosted remotely) posted by cg1 at 2:10 PM PST - 4 comments

Toronto MeFites: Tell me everything and anything about Little Italy / College & Grace. I'm considering moving there. What about it sucks/rocks? Best places to shop/hang/eat/chill/ whatever. How much are tomatoes? Bananas? Other food staples? Not familiar with Little Italy? How about High Park/BWV; Kensington; Dufferin and Keele? Dunno those areas? Where should I abslolutely positively avoid? [more inside]posted by dobbs at 12:52 PM PST - 19 comments

I'm using a laptop that i frequently hook up to 2nd monitor. I use window's display properties, "settings" tab and check the "extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" box. Everything works great.. . the problem is that I have to get up frequently and "uncheck" the box to disassociate my laptop with the 2nd monitor. [more inside]posted by jason9009 at 12:39 PM PST - 13 comments

Looking to establish an Fantasy Baseball league with an auction style draft amongst a group of people nationwide. I'm figuring online chat is the best method. Any suggestions on both software and process? Free services are ideal. posted by Yukon at 12:03 PM PST - 14 comments

I was wondering about the exact legality of distributing video game ROMS on the internet? Is it legal? Does the "delete it in 24 hours" statement really shield a site from legal action?
All ROMS sites seem really shady with a lot of layers of pages to go through to get to their content. Some insist it is perfectly fine, while others disagree
I searched and only found these twothreads. Thanks! posted by Blandanomics at 11:40 AM PST - 20 comments

I have a electric (220v) dryer, but my new house is set up for gas, and the outlet is only 110v. I think that I have a situation where it would be relatively easy for me to install a new 220v outlet next to the current one without having to involve a professional. Does the scenario (inside) appear workable for the average diy'er? [more inside]posted by trivirgata at 11:16 AM PST - 20 comments

In the early 70s, I saw a cartoon "short" in some movie theatres. It was about "the little people who live inside us." Does anyone remember this cartoon? What was it? Who made it? [more inside]posted by grumblebee at 11:00 AM PST - 9 comments

I bought a new suitcase recently, and when I got it home discovered that the interior (which is lined in some sort of plastic or vinyl) has a very strong plastic-y/chemical smell. I've tried leaving it open to air out, I've tried putting some dryer sheets inside and closing it, but nothing has helped abate the stank. I'm going on a trip on Thursday and don't want my clothes to reek of chemicals! Any ideas? posted by Kat Allison at 9:33 AM PST - 12 comments

What kind of things might you recommend in terms of protein/energy foods to take early in the AM if you're trying to do the gym first thing in the morning? [more inside]posted by xmutex at 9:10 AM PST - 9 comments

so, the person in charge of my (gardenia) bonsai while i was gone let it dry out. the branches are all still green where i scratch the bark, so i know it's not dead, but the leaves are all shriveled and faded (instead of dark, glossy and pert). i really know nothing about caring for the tree (it was a gift) but it was in great shape when i left it with buds about to open. what should i do to bring it back to good health? posted by crush-onastick at 7:04 AM PST - 1 comment

Browsing through my logs and exploring the links leading to “25 Best License-Free Quality Fonts”, I accidentally discovered Delicious and Fontin – two unique, delightful, delicious, license-free beauties, which definitely will make a lasting positive impression on the visitors of your web-projects.
However, there is a problem. The fonts can be used only on a Mac-PC, which means that I don't have any use of them whatsoever. So how could I convert a Mac-font to PC-font? Are there any freeware tools which would convert the fonts without loss of quality? posted by vitaly friedman at 6:24 AM PST - 17 comments

February 20

Since Old Dutch discontinued their pork rind line, are there any other brands available in Canada? Any brands available mail-order that you can recommend? posted by PurplePorpoise at 10:28 PM PST - 9 comments

Particular web pages won't load for me -- nothing exotic, normal stuff like the Washington Post, certain pages at Amazon. The WaPo site just loads the logo bar at the top and then stops dead.
Worst part is that it doesn't matter what browser or OS I'm using. What's going on? [more inside]posted by words1 at 9:47 PM PST - 11 comments

Credit cards are a trap. My partner and I have been digging out for the last 2 years w/ a Debt Management Plan from a Consumer Credit Counseling Service. We're having a kid and will suffer about 6 months of reduced income as a result. We're already at bare bones to make the huge monthly DMP payment and have no assets. The CCCS had very little to offer - the only real suggestion being that I pull out of the DMP and request a hardship repayment plan from each credit card individually(there are 5). Can anyone share experience of trying this? A consolidation loan is unlikely w/out super-high rates and the total debt is over 30k... posted by dorcas at 7:39 PM PST - 15 comments

OK, so I figured out, through lots of painful browsing of MSDN, how to make windows (partially) transparent, and also how to chroma-key windows. And it works great, but only in windows 2000. In windows XP it works only in certain cirumstances. Need windows programmer to help me... [more inside]posted by RustyBrooks at 7:38 PM PST - 15 comments

Thesis writers block: So I have until thursday to get a first draft of the discussion section of my thesis written. I've been working on it for the past few weeks at a snail's pace. I showed my advisor what I had come up with last week and surprisingly enough, he was ok with it. My problem is I just simply cannot muster up the motivation to get any more work done on this. [more inside]posted by garethspor at 7:35 PM PST - 24 comments

Visited the dentist today. It was suggested that I needed "scaling and root planing" to cure my periodontal disease. That and a "rota-dent" toothbrush. Would these really help, or would I be better to just floss from now on? [more inside]posted by gavia at 7:27 PM PST - 21 comments

Where can I buy sugar-cane Coca Cola (or comparable colas) in New York City? I went to Italy last year and was able to enjoy Coke sweetened with sugar cane instead of the awful high-fructose corn syrup glop, and I have been dreaming about the stuff every since. [more inside]posted by gentle at 7:05 PM PST - 37 comments

I have finally paid off all my delinquent credit card debts. My credit rating is pretty crappy though. But I now have a secure job, and am now ready to re-open some of the closed accounts (if it's even possible), and also hopefully reinstate the original credit-limits on them. But there's that pesky issue of my credit rating standing in the way. What is my best strategy to get my credit back on track? [more inside]posted by anonymous at 6:25 PM PST - 13 comments

Is there any cheap and easy way to highlight or underline PDF documents? I do a lot of research, and I'd like to be able to tag important points in some way. [more inside]posted by purplevelvet at 4:20 PM PST - 8 comments

This is probably an embarassingly easy question to answer, but when it comes to networking, I'm clueless. Can I use static IP + DHCP on same network using two routers—one wired/one wireless? [more inside]posted by Fezboy! at 3:19 PM PST - 10 comments

Has anyone used an automated tool for moving (to a new house) - for example, like the Move Planner at moving.com? Your experience?
What I'd really like to do is get a package like TurboTax, but for moving. But my impression is that there is no one out there selling good (any?) software for moving. So should I buy just a book (and which one)?
And does anyone besides moving.com offer an automated (apparently) way to notify a bunch of magazine publishers that you have moved or are about to move? (I'd rather not fill out all those little cards that the USPS offers - or used to offer, and cut labels off magazines.) [more inside]posted by WestCoaster at 2:34 PM PST - 1 comment

If you have a routine that you regularly do at night or in the morning, what have been the most beneficial things you've added to your routine that have improved the quality of your life? I'm having trouble establishing routines that are meaningful to me and I'd like some suggestions. posted by the giant pill at 1:26 PM PST - 29 comments

I'm trying to implement some AJAX features in a project, and need help deciphering the possible options and parameters of the Rico framework's accordion display. [more inside]posted by Tubes at 1:26 PM PST - 4 comments

How can I fix or adjust the keypad of my new Dell laptop to prevent the cursor from jumping to other spaces, other lines, highlighted blocks of text, even calling up random functions.
In the user's guide installed on the HD there are instructions for adjusting the touch pad, but not the keyboard.
Over at Dell Hell I find nothing. I'm on the road, limited Internet access, could use some personal experience. posted by NorthCoastCafe at 1:05 PM PST - 12 comments

I've got a directory filled with the digital photos I and friends have taken over some eight years. It's a disorganised mess with no coherent, standardised naming format. I'd like to:
-remove duplicates
-sort, rename or place in folders images based on EXIF data or content
I'm on Mac OS X but could possibly gain access to a Windows box if necessary. Any ideas? posted by dance at 12:34 PM PST - 14 comments

Laptopfilter Difficulty: Less then $350.
I'm thinking of getting a laptop for a friend of mine. The other day at best by I saw some that were in the $500 -$600 range. So there must be some somewhere in the $300-$400 range somewhere. Where are they and what would be best? [more inside]posted by Paris Hilton at 12:33 PM PST - 20 comments

I want to know more about the history of Russian biology--especially in the period from Darwin to Lysenko (roughly 75 years). I don't know any Russian, so the source has to be in English. Anyone know anything that would fit this description? posted by onetreehill at 11:49 AM PST - 2 comments

Has anyone tried growing edible mushrooms in their garden? I can't find much info online apart from commercial sites selling fairly expensive growing kits (and a heap of sites on psychedelica). I figured there must be a more economical method ... posted by bcveen at 11:41 AM PST - 22 comments

Does anyone know what the music is at the beginning of this United Airlines commercial? I know the rest is Gershwin "Rhapsody in Blue". The piano in the beginning is what I want. posted by thimk at 11:37 AM PST - 6 comments

I am faced with several dilemmas. The most urgent at this point being: KSAs. I'm aware that its fairly difficult to find a job position with the government but the KSA portion of the process is putting me over the edge!
There are several positions that I see posted each day that I believe would be perfect for me, however, I simply cannot get past doing the KSA's.
Does anyone here do or know of any good companies that specialize in writing KSA's for others? Perhaps a tutorial site which enables me to do it myself? I sure would appreciate any leads. [more inside]posted by seeminglyshy at 11:24 AM PST - 5 comments

I recently got back to uni after my dad died, and spent a night drinking and crying on a mate of mine, who, the previous term, had spent a while hitting on me and being knocked back. About 4am, after the best part of a bottle of wine (on my part, he was sober) he kissed me and we ended up in bed together. He asked if I wanted to have sex, and I said no, but then he kept trying to take it further than kissing, and eventually I caved in and let him put his hands wherever he wanted. I wasn't against it so much as indifferent. We had sex, fell asleep, and I left before he woke up. I've felt increasingly uncomfortable about it over the last few days and I have to work with this guy over the next few weeks - should I tell him that I feel he took advantage of me, in order to get it off my chest and move on? posted by girlwonder at 11:15 AM PST - 88 comments

DentalFilter: Anybody else have their amalgam fillings replaced because they're old--NOT because you were worried about their possible harmfulness? [more inside]posted by lilybeane at 11:13 AM PST - 18 comments

I need a bunch of evidence/information to educate a friend about the diamond industry; why it is a monopoly, how it has fueled civil wars in African nations, the current state of diamond mining, etc. I thought there was also a famous photojournalist (Salgado?) who took photos of a diamond mine in Africa as well. Can anyone help me gather information on why diamonds should not be purchased? Thank you in advance. posted by gen at 10:24 AM PST - 15 comments

My mom is bad with money. She has asked me and my brother to help her with her financial situation, and my brother wants to have power over her financial accounts at her bank. She does not gamble or have drug problems, she just lives beyond her means and we can't stop her unless we have control of her assets which she has agreed to. She currently holds two known mortgages on the home and we want to be able to keep her from putting on any more against it. [more inside]posted by Dean Keaton at 8:33 AM PST - 24 comments

I have a hard time staying organized at work. My problem isn't working on something, it's staying aware of the many projects and tasks that I have to complete, prioritizing, and staying on top of a project (and letting clients know that I'm on top of it, next step, etc.) There are multitudes of tools out there, and I have access to many of them.
What I'd like to know is what methods have you found that work for you with regards to your daily organization at work? Notebook, spreadsheet, Outlook, etc? posted by adampsyche at 8:18 AM PST - 20 comments

1) Are there any internet payment methods besides PayPal that are gaining market share? 2) Are you aware of any web services that handle the fulfilment side of selling intellectual property (e.g. download & payment collection)? If it makes any difference, I'm in Canada and server is Unix and in USA. Thanks! posted by Manhasset at 7:16 AM PST - 3 comments

when scanning AM radio stations in my car, why does seeking UP always catch fewer stations than seeking DOWN? this has been the case with each of the 3 cars i have owned. anyone else get this? posted by jmccw at 6:57 AM PST - 11 comments

What is the difference between plant stanol esters and plant sterol esters? Two popular butter substitutes claim to have been proven to lower cholesterol by using these substances. Which one is better at doing it? [more inside]posted by megatherium at 3:48 AM PST - 6 comments

February 19

How do you replace a lost learner's permit in California? I read on the DMV's website how to replace a lost license -- you have to make an appointment, pay some money and fill out a whole new application. But what about a lost learner's permit. If I have a photocopy of the original, can I drive with that? Or do I need to go to the DMV and obtain a new permit? posted by Carsey at 11:33 PM PST - 4 comments

I have a car that has been sitting parked for 6 months in Nashville, TN and the tags have expired. I will be going this week to drive it to my new place in San Jose, CA. I know that I will have to pay a few hundred bucks to register it in CA when I get there and would like to avoid paying to register for a full year in TN when I only need valid pates for a few days.
I've done some searching on the TN website and can't find any information if there is any sort of temporary tag (even 10 days is more than enough) that would get me through. Does anyone have experience with this? Any ideas on what my options might be? posted by aaronh at 10:47 PM PST - 18 comments

My internet connection is flaky. When I load say MeFi, MeTa & Ask MeFi in three tabs together, only 2 of the 3 will load, the 3rd one will be a “Server not found” message. I’ll be able to download something or IM but be unable to load Google, etc. I don’t know what is wrong or how to fix it. Any ideas? posted by riffola at 9:43 PM PST - 15 comments

Potty training the dog. The common method of rubbing their nose in a mistake while saying no and/or smacking them doesn't seem like a great idea. I wonder about the opposite though. Would having them smell their waste outside and giving them a treat do any good? [more inside]posted by dking at 9:07 PM PST - 20 comments

Let's say I have a document on my computer that incriminates/implicates me in a crime. Let's say I encrypt it, and I conveniently forget the password or encryption key that was used to encrypt the file. Let's assume the police can break the encryption, but, the time needed to break the encryption is longer then the statute of limitations of the crime in question. What can they do to me? What can happen to me? (Besides possibly getting convicted of obstruction of justice or contempt of court for not divulging the encryption key?) [more inside]posted by yeoz at 9:02 PM PST - 19 comments

I want a true vector-based (i.e., not merely a series of thousands of line segments) Postscript or Illustrator file of an epicycloid where a=5, b=2. [more inside]posted by dmd at 7:51 PM PST - 25 comments

I have a US Verizon Wireless cellphone. I want to call a French Cingular cellphone (somehow it can also work on T-Mobile - maybe its a roaming thing?). Country code + # isn't working. I'm very confused. posted by devilsbrigade at 7:21 PM PST - 11 comments

BugsBunnyFilter: As I recall, a common feature of households seemed to be a box-like sauna where you'd sit inside with your head sticking out. What were these? [more inside]posted by vacapinta at 5:31 PM PST - 19 comments

This past Christmas I got hung up on the idea of giving my brother a particular lamp that I saw many months before in a catalog from uncommongoods.com. The trouble is that they don't seem to stock it any more, I couldn't find the original catalog and now two months after Christmas I'm still looking for another store that stocks it. I only glimpsed it for a moment while I was l leafing through the catalog and I don't remember it well enough to describe it accurately, just well enough that I remember thinking "that would make a great gift". [more inside]posted by cobrien at 4:13 PM PST - 4 comments

Microsoft Word figure/photo/object placement is driving me insane. What is the secret to placeing figures in word? I'm used to Latex, where they are always at the top of the page, floating with the text. This seems to be impossible in word. [more inside]posted by about_time at 3:57 PM PST - 7 comments

What is the shelf life of the gasoline/oil mix that is used in 2 stroke engines? I use my chain saw 2-3 times a year and mixing fresh gas/oil mix every time is both wasteful and creates a disposal problem. How often should the gasoline in my emergency generator be changed? posted by Raybun at 3:53 PM PST - 5 comments

There’s GOT to be a way I can convert my .aa audio books from Audible.com into plain old audio files (eventually convertible to mp3s for compact packing onto as few as possible CDs) without burning them all onto physical CD disks at 44.1k first, doesn’t there?? (“Virtual” disks would be fine!)
On a Mac, btw... And yes I’m aware that this seems to be something of a grail quest, but surely some M’Filterite has found it...yes? posted by dpcoffin at 3:47 PM PST - 18 comments

How do I make my own animated screensaver? I have some graphics I've been using as desktop backgrounds, and now I'd like to make them into an animated screen saver. I'm fluent in Photoshop and Illustrator, and I'm on a Mac running OSX 10.2. posted by fandango_matt at 2:44 PM PST - 8 comments

A group of friends and I are flying down to Atlanta this coming weekend to celebrate and support a friend going through a divorce. We would love to get her a penis cake...know any bakeries in the area that do that type of baking? posted by psususe at 12:52 PM PST - 8 comments

The side rails on our wooden bed frame attach by hooking into a metal plate screwed into a recess in the headboard. We didn't assemble things snugly enough when we first put the bed together and as a result one of the screws on the metal plate eventually levered out of the wood. How do we repair this? [more inside]posted by Lazlo at 12:48 PM PST - 9 comments

Might have to do some serious work on my house's foundation. Estimates run to $10,000 or more. What should I be asking or thinking about here? [more inside]posted by jojopizza at 10:36 AM PST - 4 comments

What are some films that show historically accurate racist or bigoted behavior that was directed against Irish, Italian and/or Catholic immigrants to America? [more inside]posted by hobbes103 at 10:21 AM PST - 23 comments

Last night while watching Olympic ski jumping, I noticed what appeared to be tiny pine trees spaced evenly down the center of the hill, right between the jumpers' ski tracks. What are they for, and why use pine trees? posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:01 AM PST - 9 comments

So i was kicking the old peanut around and wondered if anyone else ever thought about getting some old oil tankers and converting them into a floating nation. [more inside]posted by stilgar at 9:50 PM PST - 46 comments

I found the most comfortable underwear ever at Target, but haven't been able to track any more packages down. These are all Google comes up with and they're sold. Help! posted by youcancallmeal at 9:12 PM PST - 5 comments

Does anyone happen to know what an "industry standard" percentage might be for an independent salesperson in the media industry (commercials/animation/print/etc.)? [more inside]posted by numlok at 8:43 PM PST - 0 comments

What are the various theoretical frameworks for understanding why victims of abuse often 'deal' with their trauma by becoming perpetrators themselves? What explanations have been suggested, for example, as to why sexually molested children often grow up into sexually-molesting adults? The one that comes to mind is that the victim somehow feels he can master the trauma by becoming its perpetrator. What, or who, is the origin of this theory? Is it Freud? Does it (still) have any currency in professional circles? What, if any, other theories have been suggested? posted by ori at 5:54 PM PST - 22 comments

Where can I buy cheap DVD DL (double-layer) discs, and what's the cheapest price that you've found (either on-line or in a store)? It doesn't matter if they are - or +. [more inside]posted by thewittyname at 5:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Tonight, I lost it all on the hard eight. In an effort to become a better player, what's the best craps video game (or general casino game) for Mac OS X? posted by The Jesse Helms at 4:31 PM PST - 7 comments

I was visiting my relatives out of town a few weeks ago. When I got back home, my uncle said that his neighbor thought that I bumped into the front of her parked car, and he said that it was my car that was parked in front of her. [more inside]posted by i8ny3x at 4:09 PM PST - 6 comments

I'm putting together a care package for a friend of mine who just bought her first condo, and I'd like to include some music. My mixtape muse has fled, and I need suggestions for songs about real estate, houses, condos, mortgages - you know, the usual stuff of melodic inspiration. posted by bibliowench at 3:54 PM PST - 20 comments

Powerbook/OSx/Firefox question. Until today, hitting the space bar scrolls down through a webpage. I love this feature and have come to rely on it. Now, when I hit the spacebar, nothing happens. I've noticed that clicking on the page itself now brings up a flashing text cursor - that never happened before. Plus, arrow keys now just move the cursor up and down. I think this might be because I accidentally toggled scroll lock off, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn it back on! [more inside]posted by salad spork at 2:52 PM PST - 5 comments

Windows XP crashes whenever it accesses a specific file. The problem: I don't know what file it is. What would cause such a serious error and how do I fix it? [more inside]posted by monsta coty scott at 2:04 PM PST - 8 comments

I have terrible microphone interference probably because my computer runs very noisily. If you approach the back of the tower where the sound card is plugged in, you'll hear lots of humming. [more inside]posted by gregb1007 at 11:07 AM PST - 6 comments

I wake up with sore lower back and stomach muscles every day, and I'm ready to be over it. I have a history of tweaking my back - mainly just from the way I sleep (on my stomach to a large degree). Any suggestions? [more inside]posted by wavejumper at 9:44 AM PST - 11 comments

In this story a man is accosted by Best Buy employees, and blocked from leaving the parking lot, for refusing to show a receipt after purchasing an item. This raises some legal questions about physical detention by non-police. [more inside]posted by jsonic at 7:54 AM PST - 38 comments

I have been asked to housesit/dog sit for 5-6 months of spring and summer. I will have 2 dogs (maybe 3) plus my own dog will be coming with me. It is in a nice neighborhood and the home is extravagant and enormous. There's just one catch..... [more inside]posted by wondergreen at 6:32 AM PST - 16 comments

What was your favorite psych class demonstration or experiment from high school or college? What things did the instructor do to make the class fun or interesting for you? [more inside]posted by skechada at 7:32 PM PST - 22 comments

[MovieNameFilter] A couple of years ago, I remember seeing a trailer for a movie of oriental origin -- I think it was korean, but I'm not sure -- that was a CGI/live-action giant robot movie, with a swordsman all in white doing a serious job of kicking ass (and potentially taking names, but it was all in a language foreign to me, so I'm not too sure).
Does anyone A) know what the name of this film is, B) know where I can find it, and C) know if it was translated into english, or at least subtitled? posted by ChrisR at 7:19 PM PST - 6 comments

Someone for whom I often cook is beginning the Fat Flush Diet soon. Can anyone point me to a succinct list of what foods are/are not acceptable in this diet? I've found a few sites with collections of recipes but would prefer to develop/adapt my own recipes, and I don't much want to buy the book about the diet. posted by bac at 6:03 PM PST - 2 comments

I recently subscribed to an online backup service that offers 1GB for $9.95 a year. After joining the service I discovered that you upload one file at a time. No uploading of folders. Is zipping files and folders the best solution for getting large amounts of data backed up with this scenario? More below [more inside]posted by Gerard Sorme at 6:02 PM PST - 13 comments

I'd like to have sex in unusual/new/(public) places. Any tips, tricks, hints, suggestions, or warnings you'd like to share? What are good places? [more inside]posted by Netzapper at 5:47 PM PST - 30 comments

My camera recently ate a month's worth of intense picture-taking! About 90% were salvaged by imgsave, but of course the remaining 10% are the best or most important. Each of those broken images completely draws as a thumbnail, but only partially renders when opened. There is no apparent consistency to how much is drawn or which pictures were eaten. [more inside]posted by whatzit at 4:19 PM PST - 10 comments

Barcelona filter: Can anyone help me locate a facility for an outdoor dinner party for 100 people? It has to be within walking distance of the Hilton Barcelona. I'm thinking museum, beer garden, etc. posted by kdern at 3:52 PM PST - 3 comments

Should I use an OTC yeast infection treatment? I'd prefer answers from women who aren't going to scare the crap out of me with worst case scenarios...if you think you can help, check out the [more inside]posted by tastybrains at 3:42 PM PST - 24 comments

Is there a web site that describes "A Day in the Life of..." for various occupations like auto mechanics, cosmeticians, doctors, lobbyists etc. I'd like to know the daily details of what it's like to work in these professions for a story I'm writing. posted by storybored at 2:24 PM PST - 13 comments

Anyone have a recipe or method for making bread like they do a the Subway sandwich shops? Do they use special pans? How do they make their bread so good?? posted by GernBlandston at 1:15 PM PST - 28 comments

Email sending problem, using GoDaddy, Verizon DSL and a wireless setup. Two laptops, both have Thunderbird email settings set up exactly the same. I can receive just fine, but when I send I get this error: "553 Dynamic pool 71.124.245.174, http://unblock.secureserver.net/?ip71.124.245.*". GoDaddy's support page tells me to go to the URL listed, which leads me to this odd little unidentified page where I can request to have the IP unblocked. [more inside]posted by schoolgirl report at 12:48 PM PST - 3 comments

I'm a web server admin and have a university faculty member that wants to do a research project that would involve recording (on a per-user basis) the links clicked on a web site they have created. Suggestions??? [more inside]posted by spock at 11:53 AM PST - 10 comments

I recently ended an affair I was having with a beautiful, intelligent, charming, older, married woman (I'm Ashton's age, she's Demi's). After 3 weeks I just couldn't deal with the guilt anymore. I knew the affair was wrong, but I did it anyway. As a Catholic, I'm working on the whole reconciliation thing. [more inside]posted by anonymous at 11:06 AM PST - 34 comments

I'm using Excel to create a weekly pay stub for a nanny, but I haven't figured out how to automatically include the previous week's data to create a "Year to Date" column for wages and taxes. [more inside]posted by ShooBoo at 10:23 AM PST - 6 comments

Liam Lynch, the IRA's leader in the early 1920s, supposedly had a great grandfather who had been a member of the United Irishmen and fought in the 1798 rebellion. Does anyone know the great grandfather's name or where I could find that information out? [more inside]posted by jamesonandwater at 10:04 AM PST - 7 comments

Am organizing a free outdoor film series in a community park in Jersey City and need a suggestion for the closing show. For the most part the series is not mainstream, shows a balance of local, foreign, independent and classics. Based on the current selection (see below) please brainstorm a great closing show. Please take into account the current and past selections when making your recommendations.
Thanks & Save the quail. [more inside]posted by johoney at 8:12 AM PST - 23 comments

Recommendations for a decent consumer grade (cheap) printer that handles printable CDs and DVDs? How is the print quality on a typical silver-top CD? Does printing on them ever risk data corruption? posted by p3t3 at 7:44 AM PST - 4 comments

Safari + gmail question. Is it possible to press the 'Send' button in gmail with the keyboard using Safari? I can tab to the button so that it is highlighted but it seems that there is no way to press it from the keyboard. In Firefox this is easily done -- highlight the button and press return and the message sends. In Safari this typically works with similar setups, but not gmail buttons. I know this sounds like a picky thing to ask but it has been bugging me for ages. posted by n9 at 7:02 AM PST - 12 comments

A friend, who is still within their two years probationary period, bought a car at auction recently. Stupidly, they did not have the proper insurance to drive it home, and were stopped by the police. What is the most likely outcome? [more inside]posted by viama at 12:38 AM PST - 5 comments

My wife has just been diagnosed with Colon Cancer through a colonoscopy. We will be getiing a lot of professional advice over the next while. In laymen's terms, what should I know about treatment (in Montreal)? posted by notcostello at 10:14 PM PST - 15 comments

Serverfilter: So I managed to get my hands on my father's company's old server. I know nothing about servers and related fields, but how might I get started? [more inside]posted by Atreides at 9:19 PM PST - 18 comments

Itunes merged my music and destroyed my organisation, can this be undone?I decided to give ITunes a try from winamp. I was trying to organise the my music and it seems once I set the ITunes music folder to my own it took all of my .mp3s and placed them in all new folders. I now have double folder sets, one with the .jpegs and ones with the MP3s. I spend a lot of time organising music into folders, so this is quite frustrating. Can this be undone? Or will I forever despise ITunes for this situation? posted by Knigel at 8:11 PM PST - 26 comments

I'm ready to trade in my 13-yr-old Civic, but it has a bunch of little problems. Hard starts, occasional (though rare) stalls, buzzy speakers, rust, a couple small dents, and some moron recently ran into my side mirror and broke it. Is it worth fixing any of these things in order to get a better trade-in value? posted by booth at 8:03 PM PST - 14 comments

I understand that certain handhelds (the DS and PSP come to mind) can actually be rendered useless and unsalvageable by malicious software. If I bought a smartphone what feature would I be looking for that would ensure me that like a PC, I could always do a fresh install if things got too virusey? [more inside]posted by dino terror at 5:47 PM PST - 6 comments

Last Sunday's Grey's Anatomy episode is bothering me. At the end of the episode, Dylan (the bomb squad guy) takes the bazooka shell from Meredith and slowly walks out of the room. This seems illogical/silly/non-bomb-squady to me. [more inside]posted by Kololo at 2:26 PM PST - 39 comments

Whenever I watch .mov files now (like these: 1, 2, 3), I get small, vertical colored bars that randomly pop into the video, then fade after a few seconds. I also get this on old .mov files on my computer that didn't have it before I installed the newest version of quicktime. What's up with that? posted by driveler at 2:24 PM PST - 2 comments

I look younger than my age (25) and I've found the best way to combat that is to 'dress up'. I want to know where to get good quality, reasonably priced professional clothing. [more inside]posted by alma at 2:09 PM PST - 30 comments

What's a really good DOM/Javascript/DHTML quick-glance reference? I'm talking about something I could post on my cube wall, or maybe a folded 11 x 16, or *maybe* a very well organized large page-size small-page # booklet. Up to date cross-browser coverage. Free is nice, but I'm willing to pay. posted by namespan at 1:27 PM PST - 5 comments

The power connector to my G4 Powerbook is almost dead. It only charges in one very specific position, and I have to twist it around for a few seconds to find the sweetspot (rotating it in situ). Nothing is loose and nothing is visibly wrong. I tried squeezing the metal sleeve slightly to make it more elliptical in the hope this would create a tighter connection, but it made no difference. [more inside]posted by unSane at 12:40 PM PST - 18 comments

Where can I find a good CD head unit for my new car? I'm having trouble finding good reviews for current products online. I'm looking for sites with reviews or recommendations of actual head units. [more inside]posted by raddevon at 12:38 PM PST - 7 comments

Something is badly broken in the search on my Mac. It can't find ANY zip or rar files, and it doesn't necessarily find everything matching a given query. E.g. - if I search for "pink", it finds one of 3 Pink Floyd folders and it only finds Pink Floyd tracks within one of those three folders, though a different one than the actualy folder it found! Can/should Spotlight be re-indexed? Are there any hacks to roll back to the old search? Should I just go with a 3rd party search app? posted by badstone at 11:42 AM PST - 5 comments

I've noticed when reading European books translated into English, the turn of phrase "Do sex" or "sex each other" etc. Is this an accurate translation, or is it a watered down translation for the tradionial f-word in American English? British books sometimes feature it as well. Are both phrases used in Europe? Is there a difference in meaning? posted by rainbaby at 10:18 AM PST - 21 comments

hey, i've been searching metafilter but can't find exactly what i'm looking for in the archives...specifically the best way to clean and polish our antique wood kitchen/dining room table. should we use a wax polish? any truth behind the technique of using a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice? right now the table looks dull and i want it to gleam! thanks! posted by battlecj at 7:47 AM PST - 4 comments

My friend is getting Confirmed next week, and I'm looking for some good Christian music for her- a genre I don't know much about beyond the big names. [more inside]posted by jmd82 at 7:20 AM PST - 37 comments

1. Am I wrong to think that $110.00 is too much to pay the vet for a 10-minute appointment to look at my cat's eye and hand me a 3.5 gram tube of erythromycin ointment?
2. If the answer to 1 is "yes," can you recommend a good vet near Newton Upper Falls, MA, USA?
3. What's the etiquette for changing vets when you think that your vet is more than competent but you don't want to pay his prices anymore? [more inside]posted by Mayor Curley at 7:20 AM PST - 24 comments

Last year I used the program GalleryRemote to upload 300pics to a pretty crappy photohosting website. My HD recently crashed and I want to retrieve all the photos easily, but can't - how can I do it? [more inside]posted by shokod at 10:14 PM PST - 11 comments

Am I bogging down my new iMac with software? I have a 20" Intel iMac with 512mb (adding another 1mb as soon as my Amazon rebate comes). I love it! This thing is so fast...starts up in about 10 seconds, responds quickly almost all the time. Once in a while it hesitates, I suppose due to a lot of programs open. [more inside]posted by Chuck Cheeze at 9:36 PM PST - 23 comments

What was the name of an early 1990s band that were vegetarian, feminist, pacifist etc etc? I think it was kind of rap music and they had one song about periods. [more inside]posted by meech at 9:23 PM PST - 21 comments

I'd like to re-create the dhtml/javascript menu amazon.com uses in the top navigation button "See All 32
Product Categories".
I've run out of google juice. There's an answer on experts-exchanges.com but I thought I'd post here before paying... posted by masymas at 8:52 PM PST - 8 comments

I am looking for software to make a mix of a bunch of MP3's to subsequently burn onto a CD. I do not have any turntables, so Final Scratch is out of the question. Furthermore, I am not really looking for a piece of 'performance' software like Mixman, or Virtual DJ. Something more a long the lines of ACID that allows me to drag and drop tracks and adjust the BPM to match up the beat. I have actually done this in ACID but the BeatMapper functionality required to pull this off is rather clunky and it takes a long time to compose a 1 hour mix. Is there easy to use 'editing' software to make myself a mix? posted by jasondigitized at 5:42 PM PST - 5 comments

I'm looking for a software tool that will ingest a large XML file, and allow me to write sql-like queries against it for both summary reporting, as well as detailed reports. [more inside]posted by nomisxid at 5:10 PM PST - 31 comments

American Grant Program Foundation? I was contacted two evenings in a row by a company claiming that the government owed me thousands of dollars since I "paid my taxes on time every year". [more inside]posted by lohmannn at 4:42 PM PST - 23 comments

Can anyone suggest a good Irish pub close to Times Square in NYC? Also, how about the best bar in general in that area? (Please nothing with "planet" or "zone" in the name.) [more inside]posted by smackfu at 4:04 PM PST - 15 comments

I'm looking for obvious and conspicuous examples of product-placement in recent movies, along the lines of "Castaway" (FedEx) and "You've Got Mail" (AOL). The more egregious the better. Last ten years or less, please. [more inside]posted by soiled cowboy at 3:34 PM PST - 97 comments

In the Kite Runner, the character Saurabh was named after the hero of an ancient Afghan (or Persian?) story mentioned a few times in the book. What was that story and can I buy an English translation? Or did the author just make that up? posted by exhilaration at 1:34 PM PST - 4 comments

I recently purchased a new Dell Dimension 9150, I plan to wipe the Dell partition and install a fresh copy of XP Pro (I already have a full copy). Any problems/hiccups I should know about before I destroy the Dell partition? posted by mhaw at 10:16 AM PST - 14 comments

I bought a CD that plays as a CD in my car, but when I put it in my mac it plays as a DVD, because it has some video too. I would like it to read as a CD, so it opens in itunes and I can copy it there. Surely this is possible? posted by dgaicun at 7:49 AM PST - 21 comments

Will Perl 6 become mandatory? I know Perl 5 pretty well, and I'd like to keep listing Perl on my resume. I wonder if employers who value Perl skills will start to expect Perl 6 to be listed. [more inside]posted by pornucopia at 7:41 AM PST - 11 comments

We live in Boston and would like to get away for the weekend to somewhere woodsy and beautiful. The problem: we don't have a car and can't rent one. What's a good getaway that's accessible by bus or, preferably, train? [more inside]posted by josh at 7:24 AM PST - 12 comments

I like Age of Empires 3 for the PC. I never thought I'd like games of this genre; up until now Half-Life2 was the only big PC game I really enjoyed, being more of a console gamer. What's a game similar to AoE3 that I might enjoy? [more inside]posted by jonson at 10:41 PM PST - 22 comments

I recently met someone (male, mid 20's) who could create sounds like a crying baby. If you close your eyes, you really can't tell it's not a baby crying. I just recently saw someone do it on Comedy Central's "Distractions". How is this done? posted by Ekim Neems at 9:14 PM PST - 4 comments

How can I possibly buy a house with the goal of renting it at a profit? I'm in LA and even duplexes are priced so high that the mortgage costs can not possibly be covered by rents... [more inside]posted by verylargecorp at 6:49 PM PST - 32 comments

Is there a way to maintain the online status of multiple accounts with one instance of ICQ? It's simple to switch to a different account, but can it be done without logging the current user out? [more inside]posted by davebush at 5:37 PM PST - 4 comments

Help me find and resolve a traffic bottleneck at my co-location. We launched a new web-app (it registers users and delivers flash content) at my work and the server fell over at about 17 conn/sec. Help me prevent this from happening again. [more inside]posted by fishfucker at 4:16 PM PST - 13 comments

Can anyone translate this? I believe I was just insulted in Dutch, but Babelfish isn't translating more than a word or two, and I don't know much. Dutch. [more inside]posted by tweak at 1:14 PM PST - 12 comments

Love-sucks-anti-Valentine's-Day-Filter: Help me make a mix of anti-love songs. Visualize a mix you might give your ex after a really, really nasty break-up. Something that says "F0ck you, I hate you, and every second we were together was torture, you evil witch," with every song. Maybe starting with OMD's "If You Leave," and getting nastier from there. [more inside]posted by ChasFile at 12:28 PM PST - 115 comments

She's Chinese, he's American - what cultural courtship differences are there?The guy is American. The girl is Chinese. They're both educated, from relatively similar economic backgrounds, similar ages...but of course, they're very different. What should they know about courtship and romance are conducted in their respective cultures? What are the rules and etiquettes, from first date to last, from making out to marriage, from expectations to promises? What are the pitfalls - and what are the positives? posted by soulbarn at 12:23 PM PST - 32 comments

Hi friends. I have a terribly ratty jacket, called the Quiksilver Rubbermaid. It's about four years old, falling apart, made of rubber but looks (from enough of a distance, I guess) like leather. I would love to replace it with an identical jacket. I can't find it anywhere, these days. Now, I understand that Rubbermaid sent a cease&desist so they changed the name, but I can't find mention of the new name anywhere either. Here's a page with a bit of information on it. Any ideas? (Sites with out-of-stock listings not needed.) posted by thejoshu at 12:17 PM PST - 6 comments

Is anyone aware of a program that converts The United States Public Land Survey (such as found on platt maps) coordinates into UTM coordinates? I would like to input land survey coordinates and have it convert the data to UTM coordinates for my GPS. Many thanks... posted by orlin at 11:34 AM PST - 5 comments

DJs - where online do you buy your vinyl? I've had great experiences buying from Juno in the UK, but I'm looking for alternatives. Google turns up a bunch of stuff but if you have any personal recommendations or experience buying from other sites (especially North American ones) please share. I spin mostly club/deep/progressive house. posted by BorgLove at 10:52 AM PST - 14 comments

My GoogleFu has failed me. Does anyone know of a place I could send a swab of DNA from my cheek and get a photo of it back (after they do the Chomatography thing). Because I love these but I'm too cheap and figure given the source image I could do the rest myself. posted by zeoslap at 10:40 AM PST - 26 comments

Opening a small business in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. What do I do to register a small business with the government? I've been interested in doing this for a few reasons, mostly because I want to work for myself (a good enough reason I know) but am unsure how to register it bureaucratically. [more inside]posted by Napierzaza at 10:02 AM PST - 11 comments

I'm traveling to San Francisco on a tight budget for a conference at the Moscone Center in early April, any experiences on area hostels or cheap hotels? [more inside]posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:49 AM PST - 12 comments

Case Interview Tips. I'm applying to several business analyst/consulting jobs that require a case interview as part of the screening process. I've never done one of these and I'd like to hear your experiences with them. [more inside]posted by sciurus at 4:57 AM PST - 7 comments

how do i say this: "i like you and that other night was great, although slightly weird because you're my friend's really close cousin, but he seems cool about it, so, anyway, do you want to do that again sometime, even though it's been a month since that night?"- without coming across as wanting to be too serious or too casual or too weird? [more inside]posted by twirlypen at 4:10 AM PST - 11 comments

Is giving head supposed to be arousing?
She prefers this sequence: foreplay, followed by cunnilingus, and then intercourse. Trouble is, almost immediately I go down on her, I lose my erection -- does this mean I'm gay? [more inside]posted by anonymous at 12:01 AM PST - 37 comments

February 13

I'm reading Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" and would like to know more about the discussion around this book and his ideas. What do people who work with these things – biotech or the computer research – think of him? Is Kurzweil stealing the limelight from other, perhaps lesser known, but more interesting/influential people? Are there any critics I should be aware of (I've found Theodore Modis)? [more inside]posted by Termite at 11:33 PM PST - 20 comments

VDayfilter: Woman I like, have for a while. Close friends for years, and she knows how I feel. Have pretty much stayed away from the old 'nice guy' just hang out stuff for the last year, but we still get together for a drink once or twice a month. Other than the occasional fun here and there, we are both single. [more inside]posted by SpookyFish at 11:01 PM PST - 18 comments

I have a large number of HTML files with numeric names (001.html, 2990.html, etc.). I would like to have each file renamed with text drawn from each file's HTML title tag. [more inside]posted by tranquileye at 10:11 PM PST - 6 comments

What is a package shipping method that is convenient to the receiver? If the recipient is not at home, he should be able to call and reschedule delivery for a better time. This is for a gift. [more inside]posted by gearspring at 9:30 PM PST - 13 comments

Looking for personal recommendations of quiet coffeehouse-type study spots in the Twin Cities. With the Winter Olympics in full swing, I am no longer able to withstand the temptation of the television in my room. [more inside]posted by charmston at 8:54 PM PST - 8 comments

Valentine's crisis: I need to have flowers delivered to either Half Moon Bay (CA) between 9 and noon, or an apartment in the Castro after 11pm. I admit poor advance planning. [more inside]posted by lbergstr at 8:13 PM PST - 7 comments

I'd like to know if any Chicago folks could tell me more about the Albany Park area than the wikipedia article can, which isn't much. I took a drive around and couldn't even find a coffee shop or anything, let alone a place where I might see some live music. I didn't even see any pubs/bars. Did I drive the wrong roads? (on behalf of twiggy)[more inside]posted by Count Ziggurat at 7:15 PM PST - 18 comments

I'm traveling outside of the U.S. (to Israel) and want to know about charging my electronics. I'm only taking a few (I agree with comments in a summer 2005 posting that taking too much stuff can distract from the actual visit) namely my HP handheld (for contact numbers) and my digital camera. I may need to recharge both. I have the original charging cords, appropriate adapters and I have access to a transformer. Do I use the transformer, and is it safe to charge these devices overseas? posted by schoenbc at 6:51 PM PST - 8 comments

What is the difference between #1 and #2 pencils? I had a set of Geddes pencils that I adored as they never smudged. However, I think I may have wrongly attributed this un-smudgeability to their being #1 pencils. Is there a correlation? And more importantly, can anyone recommend a (really) good smudge-proof pencil? posted by anonymous78 at 6:33 PM PST - 9 comments

MarxFilter: Trouble understanding the concept of "alienation of labor" in the Manuscripts of 1844. Can anyone explain to me exactly what he means? [more inside]posted by lovejones at 6:07 PM PST - 9 comments

How legitimate is it to add a new fee or charge after they've billed you for something and it's already been charged to your credit card? [more inside]posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 4:32 PM PST - 6 comments

I own a condo with a mortgage and tax deductions and equity. SO moving in. How do we split expenses fairly? Many other questions about financial logistics. [more inside]posted by commander_cool at 4:25 PM PST - 20 comments

I'm looking for something that periodically checks new RSS feeds every X hours, accumulates the feeds on a server, and then outputs a new RSS feed with all the accumulated posts [more inside]posted by Sharcho at 4:21 PM PST - 6 comments

I have GPS data associated with various measurements from around the world. This data also includes a UTC timestamp. I would like to display this timestamp converted to the local time where the measurement was taken, based on the GPS-reported latitude and longitude. [more inside]posted by Nothing at 3:56 PM PST - 5 comments

Dumb gardener filter: What can I do to help protect my big hibiscus plant from the frost tonight? This is the first frost all winter. I've been told to just throw a twin sized bed sheet over the whole plant. Is it that simple? [more inside]posted by cavalier at 2:26 PM PST - 8 comments

Ok, so I have been charged with coming up with a list of things to do at home with my wife in the evenings after the kids are in bed, because we are too broke to hire a sitter and go out right now. What are some fun things we could do at home with our clothes on that aren't too expensive or unhealthy, in a couple of hours? [more inside]posted by anonymous at 2:22 PM PST - 39 comments

ParisFilter: I am going to Paris France during the middle of March. I do not speak french, aside from knowing to say merci when people do anything nice for me. I have no misconceptions about the possibility of learning the entire french language in a months time. So what specific words and phrases do I need to know in order to get by in Paris? [more inside]posted by aburd at 1:12 PM PST - 46 comments

My wife and I may be relocating to the Orlando area so that I can start a new job. She currently has a great job (start of long career) as a system analyst at a top-notch company. She earns more money than I do, and probably always will. This year she gets 4 weeks of vacation. She is concerned that if we move to Orlando she will not find a job she likes for the same pay and with the same benefits (e.g. vacation). I had been told (once upon a time) that if you move to another company, you move up in pay, not down. What is the more likely scenario? [more inside]posted by achmorrison at 9:10 AM PST - 14 comments

UKJobsFilter: So, the medieval banqueting centre I've been playing Robin hood at for the past 16 years just rang me up to say they're selling the building to developers, and at the end of April that's it, all done.
I've been self-employed for most of that time and have been invoicing on a 'per gig' basis for years now, but I'm wondering if, as they've easily (by a factor of lots) been my main employer for those sixteen years whether a 'that's your lot, chum' is all I'm getting, or is there a 'self-employed severance' for long term invoicers? posted by timpollard at 8:27 AM PST - 9 comments

Is there a way to quickly switch between audio outputs in OS X? I have speakers set up through a Griffin iMic, and I also have headphones that I plug into my iBook's headphone jack. Sometimes I like to be able to quickly switch from one to another. Currently I have to go to the sound preference pane choose from my options there. Obviously this isn't an enormous pain in the ass, but it would be nice if I could map it to a keystroke or something.
I have Quicksilver and have fiddled with it a little, but if there is a way to make it do what I want, I can't figure it out. posted by rossination at 1:01 AM PST - 3 comments

I am moving from santa cruz to portland. My girlfriend and I recently(4 months ago) had a daughter and the cost of living here is so high that we feel there is more opportunity for us up there. We have been invited to stay with my girlfriend's parents for a few months until we get settled, but i am concerned with finding a job that will pay enough to support us. I will be the sole earner so that my daughter will be able to have a parent with her all the time. Any suggestions?
I need to make at least $15/hr ... I have been doing construction related work for the last couple of years but would like to steer away from that in favor of something not so hard on the body. I'd appreciate any comments... posted by thatjackbuilt at 12:30 AM PST - 19 comments

Is there any aesthetically pleasing way to arrange two computers (and desks, office chairs), a TV (and table), and a big comfy couch in a single room. I'm always embarrassed at the ugliness of my functional apartment when people come over. [more inside]posted by croutonsupafreak at 10:47 PM PST - 22 comments

How might I go about finding a top of the line hair salon. I am considering trying to settle into a new haircut - even a $100+ price tag is ok this one time. (I'm in S.E. Michigan.) posted by parma at 7:03 PM PST - 9 comments

Remarkable human connections made possible through the web. Blogs, Flickr, etc.
Not "love connections," but rather people who might have recognized an old relative in a photo, or a family member they never knew existed. Stumbling across each other, not searching. (more) [more inside]posted by cloudscratcher at 5:05 PM PST - 24 comments

Our collective household has a cute little plush toy (6 inches or so tall), a little like a beanie baby in form. Our apartment however, is a dust magnet so he tends to get a little dirty, any ideas on the best way to clean a small plush pig? posted by nickehsmith at 3:00 PM PST - 8 comments

Spring cleaning: The prior owner of our house left a lot of paint thinner, paint, turpentine (or is that paint thinner) and just a ton of nasty cleansers in the shed, and I finally want to get rid of it in a safe and clean manner. How? Also: I have a bunch of electronics (monitors, CD players, vacuum cleaner) that I want to recycle. Any tips? If it helps, I am in Seattle (King County). posted by xmutex at 2:58 PM PST - 9 comments

I remember a typical late 1990s Bubble story where a scammer was hyping a fake streaming video technology to grab investor cash. What name should I look up under? [more inside]posted by meehawl at 2:53 PM PST - 16 comments

Speaker Filter: I've just received a pair of M-Audio monitors that I'd sent back for repair. The right side, which was causing me problems previously, has been repaired and works great. But the left side appears to have been damaged during shipping. I'm not very happy with the company and don't really want to send them back again. Can I fix the problem myself? [more inside]posted by aladfar at 2:26 PM PST - 8 comments

What qualifications should I look for in a personal trainer? What do the ACE certifications actually mean? I'd like to hire a trainer for a few sessions, but I really don't want to hurt myself or hire a nut. Please help me sort through the options! [more inside]posted by barnone at 12:18 PM PST - 4 comments

I just built a tiny pinhole camera that mounts onto a 110 film cartridge. The directions I've found call for using a coin to turn the tiny gear to advance the film. I can't get that to work really at all. Any advice? [more inside]posted by Plutor at 12:01 PM PST - 6 comments

Where can i find it? I found this flickr pool via BoingBoing (Flickr).. I couldn't dig up the photoshop plugin that is used to do this on google, only a bunch of stand-a-long apps. posted by joshgray at 11:58 AM PST - 14 comments

I've stopped being able to work out what to do with Sundays. I know it's supposed to be a day of rest and that's ok, but I always feel like I've wasted the day no matter what. What does everyone else do? posted by feelinglistless at 9:07 AM PST - 47 comments

Used to be that whenever I misspelled a URL in IE or just entered a nonexisting one, I'd be taken to a Google search page for it. Recently I installed a program that came bundled with adware, and now whenever I enter a misspelled URL, I'm redirected to quickbrowsersearch.com. Is there any way to change this? Besides switching to Firefox? [more inside]posted by jimmy at 6:34 AM PST - 7 comments

Recurring Dreamfilter: I am standing in a tall building - sometimes a hotel with friends or family, sometimes an office building with work colleagues. There is a noise - a shake - and suddenly the building starts to collapse. [more inside]posted by Neale at 4:03 AM PST - 17 comments

I just bought a Sony Ericsson K750i Mobile Phone, and I love it. But I have some questions in regards to the Memory Stick and the Memory Stick Duo Adaptor that comes with the phone. [more inside]posted by Effigy2000 at 2:14 AM PST - 10 comments

Best version of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana? The headline pretty much says it all. What's the best version and why do you think it's the best one? I'm looking for the classical version, not any of the techno or remixed versions, and when I say "best", I mean the best performance/conductor/orchestra that's hopefully available on cd. For what it's worth, I've only heard a few versions, but I especially liked the version of O Fortuna used in the movie Excalibur. I think it has just the right amount of dramatic flair and I like the slightly faster speed. posted by edjusted at 9:44 PM PST - 10 comments

I was at a massive used booksale in Phoenix, Arizona today. I saw at least ten 20-something people with Treos and/or PocketPCs with barcode scanners scanning in tons of books.. it looked like they were doing real-time queries to some server getting book values and stuff like that. Who / what / where is going on? Is this a massive business or is this a new fad that young punks to now ... or what? posted by cowmix at 8:53 PM PST - 13 comments

Would anyone know of a good vet (and pricing) for heavy cleaning and extraction of some teeth for Chihuahuas in the Toronto area? Today I found a molar on the floor...and then the horror which are my Chihuahuas' teeth. Thanks... posted by strangelove at 6:50 PM PST - 7 comments

Many years ago, WGBH (NPR) in Boston had a Saturday afternoon folk music program. One day they played exerpts from an album by a singer/guitarist who had recorded rude songs that children sing when they think that there are no adults around. Who could this be and what is name of the album? posted by Raybun at 6:50 PM PST - 1 comment

While watching the olympics I've seen a few ads with Visa's new slogan, "Life Takes Visa" and I really like the song playing in the background. It seems like a pop/rock song (with a little classical in there too), though it may have been composed specifically for the commercial. So my question: if you've seen the ad, do you know what song that is? (And where I could get it? - hopefully iTunes) posted by pithy comment at 6:40 PM PST - 10 comments

I'm looking for a book that teaches electricity well. The Mims book definitely doesn't cut it - I want something more along the lines of "The Way Things Work" in clarity and accessibility, but I still want it to actually teach the underlying math; i.e., I want it to show me the material in pictures and equations. [more inside]posted by dmd at 5:55 PM PST - 10 comments

I received a decent tax refund and I'm thinking about doing a computer upgrade. The last time I rebuilt my system was in 2003. I don't need to be able to play the hottest new FPS (although I do game occasionally), but I want to be able to comfortably run Windows Vista when it's released. Here are my current specs: [more inside]posted by wintermute2_0 at 5:47 PM PST - 16 comments

I have sub-screens and sub-windows (as opposed the main window of a program itself) that are no longer persistent, i.e., they close or minimize whenever I roll the mouse pointer off a button that was used to open that sub-window. The problem is most annoying in Outlook and in Quicken. For example, if I try to create a new appointment in Outlook, I can open the New Appointment screen, and it remains visible, but then to select a Start Time or End Time, I click on the down arrow next to date or time box, a calendar or list of times appears, but the moment the mouse pointer moves off of the box with the down arrow, the menu of choices closes. [more inside]posted by Carsey at 4:33 PM PST - 4 comments

There was a fad dence in the Sixties called The Popeye that was particularly popular in the south, based on a minor hit by the great Enrie K-Doe. Anyone know how to do it? [more inside]posted by Astro Zombie at 3:42 PM PST - 4 comments

Is Cocaine physically addictive? I once read that it is psychologically addictive but not physically addictive. While I realize there is a physical, chemical reaction when a user takes the drug, do they ever show signs of phyiscal addiction?
Heroin is physically addictive. Marijuana is psychologically addictive.
I have googled this subject quite a bit but still haven't found any conclusive answer. [more inside]posted by Gankmore at 3:37 PM PST - 28 comments

Here's a long-shot: About 20 years ago I bought a pair of custom-made mountain-man-ish/mocassin-style boots that I had fitted at a crafts fair in San Diego. They were moose-hide, awful-looking things with metal buttons, and came with a weird flat, textured rubber sole material that the maker said was actually conveyor belting that he cut to fit the boots. The boots were happily but a passing fancy, but the soling stuck in my memory: It was the best damn pet-hair catching substance in my known Universe... WHERE can I find some more? Attached to a stick, it'd make a smashing carpet brush. posted by dpcoffin at 3:30 PM PST - 11 comments

I would like to buy a 25-50 lb sack of flour in NWDC. The only place I can think of is Costco in Tenleytown, and I'm not a member. I'm limited to metro-accessible areas. Bonus points if it's unbleached white or whole wheat. posted by The White Hat at 2:33 PM PST - 10 comments

Having lain dormant for years, my old (seven digit!) ICQ account has, this weekend, suddenly become a magnet for random botherers. How do I make them go away? [more inside]posted by armoured-ant at 11:04 AM PST - 7 comments

I'm looking for a tool which will allow me to cut MPEG2's from the command line (or programmatically otherwise). Either Windows or Linux/BSD. I've looked through a bunch of programs found via Google, but none seem to work without their GUI's.
Bonus if the MPEG2 streams are cut at the GOP marker or if it re-encodes the GOP's at the cuts. Otherwise it'll get messy. Free is preferred, but pay would be fine too as long as it works. posted by voidcontext at 9:30 AM PST - 10 comments

Olympic Nordic Combined skiing is male-only. Isn't this against the Olympic Charter? Do women want to compete? Is the sport being promoted to women? What would happen if a woman applied to compete? posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 9:13 AM PST - 9 comments

Don't get me wrong, i love the distractions and the asking that sites like this and the metafilter allow, but if i had to choose somewhere that is truly a killer online destination, that i would fight for like my own neographical country, i would be classed a conscientious objectors. What would you fight for? [more inside]posted by ugrndhg at 8:59 AM PST - 14 comments

I am loaning my never used 1995 Altima to a friend whos car was stolen, however, whenever she turns it on, the clock on the radio and all the pre-set stations disappear!
The radio plays fine, just won't keep the data.
Any ideas? posted by keep it tight at 8:48 AM PST - 13 comments

babyfilter: Help me find a high quality baby monitor. I live in a Manhattan apartment building which has proven to be a very challenging environment for wireless reception. We have plaster-over-lath wall construction which blocks many signals. The apartment is long (over 150' from the master bedroom to the baby's bedroom). There is plenty of RF interference from nearby apartments and the city environment. [more inside]posted by dudeman at 7:17 AM PST - 4 comments

My problem is killing me, When ever I click once it automatically double clicks. I have uninstalled my mouse programs and installed the latest firmware/drivers. I have looked in the mouse properties and also checked for virus's and spyware.
The mouse Im using is the Razer Copperhead. It was working fine before. posted by spinko at 2:59 AM PST - 18 comments

I have physical handicaps which prevent me from actual eye-to-book reading. I desperately want to read A Winter's Tale, but I can't find it anywhere on Audiobook. My question is: Is it available anywhere, and if so, where? posted by jitterbug perfume at 1:25 AM PST - 9 comments

Recently movie theaters 'round here were showing a Coke ad that had some interesting music. The ad was a series of stills telling a story of someone going back in time and giving [the hated product] to various people, running out, pissing off Genghis Khan, etc. The music wasn't in English, sounded Eastern European to my ignorant ears. It had a male voice and a sort of swinging sound. They don't seem to be playing this ad anymore here. What was the music? posted by fleacircus at 12:12 AM PST - 8 comments

February 10

What's a good Windows app for remotely editing files on my hosted server? Currently my method is to hand-code HTML in Notepad then use a custom batch script to FTP it to the server, or to telnet and use pico. Obviously this is horrifically tedious. I'm ready to come out of the 1990s. What's a good, nonbloat Windows app that will help me? Something that will maintain the content locally and upload changed files is be a bonus. Frontpage is bloat and way overkill. posted by chef_boyardee at 11:25 PM PST - 17 comments

What's the best way to recover from sleep deprivation? I'm a 28 y/o guy and I've had three consecutive nights of 5 to 5 1/2 hours sleep (not by my choosing -- busy period at work). Naturally, I'm exhausted by now. [more inside]posted by Handcoding at 9:05 PM PST - 19 comments

MusicFilter: I am trying to identify two songs. Both are included in this 11.2 MB MP3 (at about 05:14 there's a three second gap between the tracks). Oh yeah you might not want to click if you dislike electronic music. [more inside]posted by sjvilla79 at 8:32 PM PST - 7 comments

Are there books that explain, in great detail, the systems that clear trades (equities and options) on the markets and shuffle funds among banks in the U.S.? [more inside]posted by qslack at 8:04 PM PST - 2 comments

How to give my blonde husband a mohawk? I have clippers (and i know how to use them), scissors, hair wax (for stiffening, not removal) and some violet temporary hair colour. What's the simplest way to keep the mohawk even, both in length and width? Also the best way to dye only the mohawk. [more inside]posted by b33j at 7:57 PM PST - 12 comments

Now that we have desktop search engine that can index contents of text files in a computer, how about a software that can index the contents of audio files (e.g. speeches , teleclasses, voice mails) ?
Anybody making it or even selling it?
Please enlighten.
Thank you very much. posted by studentguru at 6:11 PM PST - 5 comments

I'm trying to access some old backup CDs and can't remember what backup program I used to create them. The only thing Windows can see on the CDs is a README.txt file that says: "This disc is a backup CD. Except for this file the contents of this disc must be accessed using your backup software." The rest of the data is invisible and presumably in a proprietary backup format. I followed this advice to no avail. Anybody know what backup program I used back then? posted by ao4047 at 5:57 PM PST - 4 comments

We have corian countertops in our kitchen. The sink, which I think is made of enamel, seems as if it's part of the countertop. I hate the sink. Does replacing the sink mean replacing the whole countertop? posted by dpx.mfx at 5:41 PM PST - 9 comments

It seems that sticking cheese in the freezer would stop the ageing process, but what about keeping it in the fridge. Could I buy medium cheddar, and stick it in the fridge for a year before opening it? Anyone tried this, any mold or other problems with eating year old but unopened cheese? posted by pwb503 at 4:45 PM PST - 11 comments

It's not how I'd choose to spend my Friday evening, but for the last few hours, I've been trying to replace carriage returns that have turned up in an Access and Excel file, and drawing a blank. [more inside]posted by godawful at 2:02 PM PST - 9 comments

Can anyone recommend a skilled, reasonably-priced tailor in Los Angeles (preferably on the westside)? Mostly I'm looking for someone who can do some significant suit alterations and occasionally make an outfit from scratch if I provide the material and pattern. I really like the seamstress at my dry cleaners and am happy to have her hem skirts and pants when needed, but I'm looking for someone to do some more advanced work. Any ideas? Thanks! posted by zharptitsa at 1:55 PM PST - 2 comments

Where do you get those little 30-foot TV towers, that look kind of like this? They're all over the place out here in rural Texas, but I don't have any idea where people get them. They can't be ham radio towers, as I've bought those before and they run close to $1000. I just want something to get my weather station wind sensors up over the tops of the pine trees. posted by rolypolyman at 1:25 PM PST - 5 comments

Please help me find the name of a weird educational science film I watched in high school. It was about the Big Bang and astrophysics. The action took place aboard a set that was supposed to be some kind of space station, where about three people discussed these issues. At the end, everyone got sucked into a black hole and the film ended abruptly. posted by johngoren at 12:05 PM PST - 5 comments

Does anyone have any experience with a company called Entertainment Media Consultants, Ltd.? I answered a craigslist ad for an online job from them and something about it is starting to bug me. [more inside]posted by mygothlaundry at 10:16 AM PST - 21 comments

I'd like to write an article about frenchman Michel Lotito, a.k.a. Monsieur Mangetout, a.k.a. the guy who got into the Guinness Book Of World Records By Eating A Bicycle. Better yet, I'd like to interview him. But I can't seem to find any contact information for him on the web -- in fact, I can find very few articles about him at all, aside from his Wikipedia entry and a bazillion nearly identically-worded factoids on assorted "zany facts!!' webpages. You'd think a professional entertainer would provide an easy method for getting in touch, but, if he has, I'm unable to find it. How do I go about finding an email address for celebrity from Grenoble, France? posted by Shadowkeeper at 10:12 AM PST - 11 comments

I'm passing through LA next week, and would like to indulge my jpop/jrock habit. Any recommendations for downtown music stores? I'll be at 2nd/Olive, near the Civic Center. I'm interested in CDs and t shirts; not interested in anime or games. Arigato gozaimasu! posted by carter at 9:48 AM PST - 15 comments

So I have a friend, okay my boyfriend, who I convinced to move to NYC from LA. Problem is, he left a job in media post-production technology for, well, me and nothing. Now we don't quite know where to even start looking for places that would find his skills useful in NYC. The movie and TV industry seem to all be based elsewhere. Can the Hivemind help? [more inside]posted by PissOnYourParade at 9:13 AM PST - 11 comments

So I've just walked away from a job I'd held for four years where they cheated me out of my earned commissions and now I'm left wondering what sort of danger I would be exposing myself to if I blogged the company and the people involved? I.e. naming names. [more inside]posted by fenriq at 8:05 AM PST - 36 comments

Riddle me this: there are two Windows XP computers (desktop and laptop) on the same Internet connection, behind the same router, connecting wirelessly to it. The laptop often (but not every time) takes a really long time (30 seconds+) to send email and connect to certain websites. The desktop never has this problem. What's going on? [more inside]posted by frenetic at 8:02 AM PST - 10 comments

Who writes all those pages and pages of text that the US government generates? More to the point, might someone pay me to write some of them? [more inside]posted by nebulawindphone at 7:52 AM PST - 23 comments

Years ago at school, I remember a video on Afro-Futurism. More than one instructor screened the video for my classes, so I've seen it a handful of times - but I can't remember the title, or where I can find it. I'm 90% sure it featured Kodwo Eshun extensively, as a "time traveler" who was researching the roots of Afro-Futurism and technology. It was focusing on music, mostly. [more inside]posted by itchi23 at 6:29 AM PST - 7 comments

DallasValentineDinnerFilter: I need suggestions for a romantic place to take my wife to dinner on Valentines Day. It needs to be in the Dallas/Ft.Worth Metroplex. I know there are plenty places im just having a major brain fart. Thanks! posted by flipmiester99 at 4:25 AM PST - 9 comments

A friend (though not someone I know very well) is having a valentines party... she is encouraging people to dress up... what should I go as? [more inside]posted by crewshell at 3:37 AM PST - 12 comments

The Chavez government is doing a lot of direct investment in the people of Venezuela, but it can't be spending all the money at once: I am wondering if it has a fund similar to the Petroleum Fund of Norway - any kind of fund saving up some of the oil money? Particularly interested if they have a fund that invests some of the money in the stock market, as the Norway's fund does. Bonus questions inside. [more inside]posted by By The Grace of God at 2:55 AM PST - 6 comments

I'm currently in a long distance relationship with a beautiful German woman (hooray). However, with Valentines day coming up is there anything I need to know? [more inside]posted by prentiz at 1:55 AM PST - 7 comments

Erm... I have an issue with some "residue" in the toilet bowl after flushing. I'm looking for insight as to why it's happening, and how other people deal with it. [more inside]posted by FortyT-wo at 12:26 AM PST - 25 comments

February 9

I am building a collection of music videos and currently, I have about 100 or so videos that range from rock to metal and etc, however, I am in desperate need for Euro-Trance videos in .mpg format from the likes of names such as
Groove Coverage, Tomcraft, Tiesto, Ferry Corsten, and etc. Does anyone know if there are any download/torrent sites deticated to this genre? Thanks in advance. posted by cheero at 10:22 PM PST - 4 comments

I gotta young teen who, sad to say, isn't a great strategist and so on. Consequently, he gets his ass kicked in most every competitive-style board or card game. Got any recommendations on great cooperative-style games? posted by five fresh fish at 9:10 PM PST - 24 comments

i am a photo student/aspiring photographer attempting to convert to digital. i have several questions:
*what is the best dSLR out there today for under $2000?
*what is the best way to get my film negatives converted to digital files?
**is it worth it to buy a good scanner? which kinds are recommended?
**or is it better to pay to have them scanned? which companies are recommended?
*for gallery quality prints what are the best printing options? website, store, or buy printer?
*what is the best photo management software for macs besides iphoto? posted by slowtree at 9:08 PM PST - 23 comments

So my wife brought home her little laptop from work and wants to use her wireless connect to our home wireless. No problem, her rig recognizes the network, BUT I FORGOT MY PASSWORD! Please help!!! [more inside]posted by snsranch at 7:27 PM PST - 10 comments

What are the options, if any, for live video of the Winter Olympics online in the US? Having been able to watch CBC in 2002, I was spoiled, but this year it's back to NBC only. Worse, with the games in Europe this year, they will be showing everything that matters spliced into bite-size melodramatic bits, in between interminable ads and features, six hours after it actually happens. So, any options, licit or illicit? posted by thirdparty at 6:37 PM PST - 6 comments

I've read everything by Neal Stephenson (and other cyberpunk authors) and most recently finished the baroque cycle. I am looking for recommendations for interesting historical fiction that has that same sort of feel--convoluted, anachronistic, sprawling, adventuresome, but not too adolescent. I need to leave science fiction for a while and need some direction. Thank you! posted by craniac at 5:38 PM PST - 48 comments

Is there an easy way to find out which domain names are using the same shared hosting server? Ideally, there is a web site or free download (OS X preferred) that can tell me which domain names resolve to a particular ip address. I've fooled around with most of the functions on samspade.org and haven't seen one that does this. posted by i love cheese at 4:54 PM PST - 11 comments

Help me clear up all the guitar stringing advice I've received. Should you remove all the strings from your guitar and then add the new ones, or change the strings one-by-one? [more inside]posted by beammeup4 at 4:48 PM PST - 22 comments

Reading/BusinessFilter: I've started reading some business books that I found on the PMBA reading list and I'm intrigued. I was wondering if any of you had any suggestions expanding on this list, whether it be business books or business magazines. [more inside]posted by petah at 4:00 PM PST - 7 comments

I am looking for movies with only a few main characters and little to no secondary characters. The main characters talk alot about philosophy, or politics or love or something, anything interesting really. (more inside). This type of movie often takes place in a deserted locale for much of the film... a few people get lost on a camping trip, or stranded on an island, or they share a jail cell together.. [more inside]posted by JokingClown at 3:22 PM PST - 86 comments

I sometimes have networks show up on my iBook's wi-fi indicator, and then I can seemingly 'join' those networks without entering a password. But then I open my browser and it won't call anything up. Are these phantom networks? Or do I need to play around with the settings?
Similarly, I get 'computer to computer networks' that show up all the time, and those never enable web surfing. Is there some way to jump on those? What's the use of a network if you can't use it, after all? posted by jgballard at 2:51 PM PST - 10 comments

I wanted an unmedicated birth, but at 41 weeks and counting I've agreed to schedule an induction. How can I make the best of a less-than-ideal situation? [more inside]posted by libraryhead at 2:50 PM PST - 25 comments

Ghost-writing multiple corporate blogs for a living. Is it feasible? Do companies all want exclusive rights to the content -- thereby removing the option of leveraging the same content on multiple blogs? (I'm aware there are clearinghouses that will market your blogging, but I'm not talking about that type of piecemeal work.) Any bloggers out there who are employed by multiple corporations? posted by nancoix at 2:29 PM PST - 3 comments

Lots of time when you read labels some of them say "whole wheat" or "wheat" or "white whole wheat." I read about it in a book about stone ground and steel ground, but was still confused. Can anyone explain the difference and also the difference in nutritional value? posted by Andrea2880 at 12:42 PM PST - 7 comments

I need a free program to convert asf audio files to mp3. Google provides plenty of programs, but they all require payment to convert the entire file. posted by punishinglemur at 11:17 AM PST - 8 comments

I'm trying to figure out the fastest route from Long Beach airport to Hollywood. I don't trust the answers that MapQuest and friends come up with. [more inside]posted by bac at 10:54 AM PST - 11 comments

Movie trivia - killer! Trying to recall a 1960s-ish (?) movie about a knock-out female British hair dresser who decides to improve herself and take continuing-ed university classes - very toff university, very toff professor (possibly Donald Sutherland or Peter O'Toole - except I can't seem to find anything similar on their IMDB career lists). Very along the lines of 'To Sir With Love,' (shot similar also) but focusing on the female's growth from bleached blonde bimbo to an academic over-achiever. Arg, this is killing me. Anyone remember this flick? posted by eatdonuts at 10:48 AM PST - 10 comments

I was in Nuremburg, Germany a few years ago and saw a bizarre piece of public art that puzzled me and the Internets has let me down. It is a giant rabid looking rat-like creature (made of copper?) that appears to be going on a rampage. It was located prominently near a castle in the walled city. Can anybody tell me what this horrific sculpture is all about? posted by punkfloyd at 10:40 AM PST - 8 comments

Ambient/chill artist search: a band with a green album cover, 4 letters, 2 middle letters are "oo"(I think). Heard them here, emailed the dj, no reply. Must. write. them down. Longshot, but that's all I have to go on. :/ posted by yoga at 10:38 AM PST - 23 comments

What kind of stuff are you planning to do in 2006? After finding out about lebowskifest I am convinced that there are some seriously cool things I don't even know that I don't know about. [more inside]posted by pissfactory at 8:31 AM PST - 25 comments

I'm about halfway through my first year of college-level Modern Standard Arabic, and would love it if someone experienced in Arabic instruction/linguistics in general could make some suggestions for materials with which I can supplement my textbook. Bonus question if you live in or around Chicago! Look inside! [more inside]posted by pullayup at 7:00 AM PST - 5 comments

ParisFi: Looking for an apartment finder service to find me a high-end place in central Paris this spring (2 weeks). Its a gift for elderly relatives and I don't have time or expertise enough to do it myself and its got to be a special place. [more inside]posted by johoney at 6:34 AM PST - 5 comments

Can I redirect a request for a website to another website? E.G. On our LAN: user types www.myspace.com, user goes to another FAKE myspace.com with alternate content urging employee to work instead of flirt. [more inside]posted by bloodniece at 6:20 AM PST - 12 comments

The wonderful, fantastic, exhilarating news is that we're getting married in Chicago in June. The less-good news is that we live in different cities, neither of which is anywhere near Chicago. So we could use a little help putting together the pieces, like florists, photographers, DJs, and oh yeah someone to actually do the marrying. And we've like got four months to do it in. [more inside]posted by gleuschk at 4:28 AM PST - 11 comments

I can't always make it to my local farmers' market, and I'd love to arrange regular weekly deliveries of organic fruits and vegetables. I'm in London (NW3). Google turns up a ton of possibilities but I'd prefer personal recommendations. Any suggestions? If anybody has suggestions for delivery of organic meat, eggs, or dairy products, in addition to fruit and veg, I'd be interested in those, too. posted by yankeefog at 4:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Career help needed - both short term and long term for an individual with a mixed background: international relations, IT support, and education that wants to get into international ICT content/project development. Two part question. [more inside]posted by k8t at 4:01 AM PST - 0 comments

A friend wants to do some sidewalk-type stencils with wash-away chalk paint. I've found this.. but it's rather lacking in color selection and quantity. Know where I can get this sort of thing in more colors and/or bulk? posted by AaronRaphael at 12:41 AM PST - 4 comments

BonnarooFilter: Planning on attending for the first time this year, and am looking for some first hand accounts of what it's like and how to prepare. [more inside]posted by viachicago at 10:55 PM PST - 7 comments

Is working abroad (a.k.a. figuring out what I want to do for the rest of my life) for a few years helpful or hurtful when I come back to the States? [more inside]posted by workinprogress at 9:30 PM PST - 13 comments

I've been taking Lamictal (150 mgs) and Welbutrin (100 mgs) for over a year. About eight months or so ago, I started taking Celexa (10 mgs) as well. Since taking the Celexa, I've gained over ten pounds, this after staying at the same weight for over three years. I'm still going to the gym six days a week and my diet hasn't significantly changed. The next time I see my doctor, I'd like to suggest he take me off the Celexa and put me on a different anti-depressant. Can anyone tell me which anti-depressant is least likely to cause weight gain? posted by anonymous at 8:01 PM PST - 16 comments

In a nutshell, I'm trying (healthily and so far very successfully) to lose a lot of weight (around 70lbs). and I keep wondering about how my body is going to change, and whether I'll ever like how I look... [more inside]posted by anonymous at 8:01 PM PST - 18 comments

Anyone know of any websites created to promote unsigned/unknown bands? Something preformatted where you can display a few pictures, a schedule of upcoming gigs, maybe a paypal link to sell your CD, etc. Hopefully with your own link (i.e. http://website.com/myband that can be printed on flyers, etc. Free is always great, very low cost is okay. I'm trying to help a local wedding/bar band that is NOT net-savvy or flush with cash. posted by catcatwomanman at 7:05 PM PST - 10 comments

I've just signed up for a triathlon. I've got a long time to train, but I'm already more or less freaking out. I'm seeking information on beginning training programs and gear. Any advice you've got would be appreciated. [more inside]posted by emptyage at 6:54 PM PST - 19 comments

I'm looking for a side / home based business. I've been toying with the idea of seling WIFI access to retailers and other establishments and came across WHOTSPOT. I'm intrigued by their turnkey solutions and low startup costs. Does anyone here have any experience with them or knowledge of their operation ? posted by dawdle at 6:07 PM PST - 0 comments

Does anyone know how to get QuickBooks-pro to spit out a form that looks like this? Or has all the elements of this?
Caltrans doesn’t care what order, it all just needs to be there. Is there an add-on to QuickBooks for Certified Payroll. (Already tried Sunburst: It sucks). Bonus points for low cost solution (blew my wad on the Sunburst fiasco.) posted by keswick at 6:06 PM PST - 1 comment

I've just started teaching chess to a group of eight 8-year olds. For the first 40 minutes or so this usually goes swimmingly, but then pandemonium breaks loose. Can you suggest any tactics or tricks to keep their attention on chess and not on antagonizing each other? [more inside]posted by Kattullus at 5:18 PM PST - 26 comments

Help me understand K4, the workflow engine for Adobe InDesign. How tightly integrated is it with the Adobe suite? Is it the best/only choice for that phase of content management, or does it provide just the basic CM functionality (library services, versioning, etc.) found in any enterprise CMS worth its salt? In other words, how many content management systems does it take to run a (mid-sized) publishing company? posted by pessoa at 4:36 PM PST - 1 comment

I'll be in New Haven, CT all on my lonesome from approximately 3:00pm on a Friday until roughly noon on a Saturday. Suggestions for a good dinner or breakfast? Maybe a coffee shop with free wi-fi? [more inside]posted by crush-onastick at 4:05 PM PST - 24 comments

I'd like to use WordPress as a CMS for non-blogging sites, but I can't seem to break out of the blog structure. Help, tips, and/or examples needed. [more inside]posted by lychee at 3:37 PM PST - 16 comments

So, it's almost Valentine's Day, and I'm in need of some help, vis a vis flowers. I need to send some flowers to a beautiful woman in another city and I need suggestions for a reputable dealer of flower power. The city in question is Vancouver, so I suppose if someone had intimate knowledge of the city they could recommend a specific place there, but otherwise an online store that you've used before (with good results) would suffice. posted by The God Complex at 2:20 PM PST - 21 comments

Im looking for a program/extension that will allow me to set 4 or 5 different homepages. I would like to rotate them randomly so my homepage is always a surpirse. Any ideas? posted by Cookie Monster at 1:47 PM PST - 17 comments

Why are there so many book publishers that have birds in their names or their logos? Is there a historical explanation? Is there any explanation? [more inside]posted by bubukaba at 1:26 PM PST - 24 comments

How evil is this ad targeting company "Revenue Science?" Would you want to be on a site that placed one of those cookies? Is it actually the kind of thing that might make ads more interesting? Privacy issues? Any security risks to the average web user? Any similarity or history shared with operations like Gator? posted by scarabic at 12:27 PM PST - 4 comments

I have a horrible real estate agent. He's acting as our buying agent and, without going into details, we'd like to sever our relationship with him. Unfortunately, we signed an agreement saying that we'd work with him until May 31st.
My question: Is there a form, or legal document, or legally binding language that we can use to cancel our agreement? Or are we stuck? posted by recurve at 11:47 AM PST - 17 comments

What is the official name for a think tank type career? How do I get into the field, and where might I look for company that employs tank-thinkers? [more inside]posted by ThFullEffect at 11:35 AM PST - 20 comments

For recent travellers, is the U.S. still a bargain? Specifically, how would you compare the price of eating out in a similarly semi-fancy restaurant in 1) San Francisco, 2) Seattle, 3) London, 4) Paris, 5) New York. Let's peg the baseline cost at about $50/person in San Francisco, excluding wine. [more inside]posted by _sirmissalot_ at 9:43 AM PST - 16 comments

I've got two columns in MS Excel. They each share 200 numbers. However, one of the columns has an additional 700 numbers. I want the column with 900 sorted in ascending order, with like numbers from the column of 200 beside those in the column of 900. How do I do that? posted by panoptican at 8:59 AM PST - 18 comments

Why would there be a difference between the dubbed Japanese translation and the subtitled Japanese translation in the movie 'Cruel Intentions'? [more inside]posted by Jase_B at 8:11 AM PST - 18 comments

i need help market sizing.
Iam trying to figure out how many small IT shops there are with under 25 people. I was given a quote that there are 50,000 IT service providers with headcounts under 25 that are selling a service, i.e. Managed Service Provider (MSP). The source indicated this number came from Gartner. posted by finnstones at 7:50 AM PST - 0 comments

JobHuntFilter: I'm currently scoping out lower to mid-level IT jobs in the Nashville area. I have a site setup already with my resume (several different formats). contact info, RSS of my tech articles, and a brief 'who I am' page. Anything else I should put on it? [more inside]posted by chrisfromthelc at 7:26 AM PST - 5 comments

At what point in the lifespan of a conventional incandescent lightbulb is it most cost-effective to replace it with an energy-efficient bulb? [more inside]posted by Faint of Butt at 7:16 AM PST - 17 comments

Vitamin gummy bears are certainly tasty, but are they strong enough for an adult at double the recommended dosage? How can we measure the efficacy of vitamin supplements in general? posted by of strange foe at 7:01 AM PST - 3 comments

I need to find people who can recover data from a broken hard-drive (featured previously here)
I am in London (London, England that is) but Googling brings up such an array of hits I don't know how to choose. [more inside]posted by Kiwi at 5:51 AM PST - 10 comments

I cannot find a fresh Butterball Turkey - even called them, but this time of the year they only have frozen.
How can I make a regular turkey into a Butterball type turkey? I have heard that one can put butter under the skin, inject it, baste it etc.
Any proven method suggestions out there? posted by bright77blue at 5:48 AM PST - 19 comments

I joined Intelliflix (previously known as dvdbarn) online dvd rental service late last year. I was wondering if anybody had similar experiences like mine with Intelliflix's rental service. [more inside]posted by flyby22 at 5:11 AM PST - 5 comments

February 7

How do you and your significant other deal with one of you being/getting sick (cold/flu/etc)? Does the sick one make any attempt to avoid getting the other sick? If so, how? posted by sdis at 10:53 PM PST - 23 comments

Itunes/Ipod Question ~
Podcasts transferred from Itunes (to my iPod) will continue playing from where I last stopped.
However, I have some podcasts that I downloaded manually (not from itunes), how do i make iTunes 'know' that it is a podcast and not a regular mp3? posted by merv at 10:01 PM PST - 13 comments

Songs with Vocoders: I recently fell in love with "Middle Class Men" by Syd Matters, which features some beautiful vocals sung through some type of vocoder. [more inside]posted by geekhorde at 9:05 PM PST - 33 comments

Linux noob Filter: Is there a linux with REAL good wireless support (integrated Broadcom) and either Enlightenment or KDE as the defalt desktop? I _REALLY_ wanna get into Linux, but it's hard without a wireless connection. [more inside]posted by TrueVox at 8:30 PM PST - 17 comments

ImmigrationFilter: my good friend is in a serious same-sex romantic relationship with a Bolivian man. They've been a couple for several years, and they would marry if it was possible. They would like to live together as a couple in the US. If they were heterosexuals, they would have wed by now. Since gay marriage isn't exactly recognized by the feds/Immigration & Customs Enforcement, can you help these lovebirds make their nest? [more inside]posted by evariste at 7:13 PM PST - 16 comments

Vegas advice? Coming from East Coast, spending this coming Sun-Wed, would like some romance (we'll be there on Valentines Day) and relaxation and some Vegas excitement [more inside]posted by KAS at 5:38 PM PST - 18 comments

I have lived in Minneapolis for 7 years, as I went to school here and had my first "real" job here. I have been planning on moving to Oregon at the beginning of April, turned in my lease, etc. Just today, I received an excellent job offer in MN from a submission I made in October, I haven't been applying around here for the past few months. So, do I stay and take the job, or move as I have been planning, although I have no employment prospects in Oregon, just the desire for change. posted by abee at 4:49 PM PST - 10 comments

Who or what is the source for the expression "cereal box French", referring to the amount of French that Anglophone Canadians are exposed to? [more inside]posted by easternblot at 4:45 PM PST - 13 comments

Another MeFi trademark question: A small restaurant chain (let’s say ABCFood) opened in Colorado in 1996 and closed all its locations in Q4 2004. All of ABCFood’s state business registrations are in "Delinquent" and/or "Administratively Dissolved" status, and the proprietor has moved on to other endeavors. The USPTO still has a "live" listing for ABCFood’s trademark, though, as mentioned, the mark is no longer maintained. What obstacles would stop someone from hypothetically opening a similar chain with the name ABCFood in another state? posted by fourstar at 4:31 PM PST - 8 comments

I just started a new position in my company as the IT Support guy. One of the projects we are working on, is getting away from people submitting paper tech requests, and to using a outlook template that everyone can just pop open to email us a standard request. We have the form working the way we want. It automatically emails my boss and I with the information they fill out, but when I fill out what I did to fix it, and try to forward it or reply to it so my boss has a record of me completing the task, it completely borks the formatting. [more inside]posted by JonnyRotten at 4:08 PM PST - 8 comments

Hotrodding MS Word: I'm finding myself wishing MS Word had a few features that I hope might be available as add-ons somewhere (or failing that, personal tips/tricks). One would be something to tell you how many times you are using individual words in a document (like an enhanced word count), so you can avoid overdoing it. For example: "You used 'cat' 5 times and 'kitty' 3 times."
Another would be some way to tag text so that no matter how much you mix it up down the road (as in taking notes and turning them into written text), you will always be able to tell what source each fact/quote/etc came from. Sort of like footnotes, but better, and ideally transferrable from file to file. Any ideas? posted by gottabefunky at 3:29 PM PST - 5 comments

I'm looking for a web-based to-do application with a few very specific features, but, essentially, one that's almost a del.icio.us clone and is very much centralized not on categories, but on tags. [more inside]posted by WCityMike at 2:12 PM PST - 6 comments

I have an Apple Airport Extreme wireless card from a computer I no longer need wireless access to. I believe it's a mini PCI card, although I don't know for sure. Is there are an adaptor out there that will allow me to use it with a regular PCI slot on a PC? (not on a Mac) posted by northernsoul at 2:11 PM PST - 7 comments

Lost 80's song...I can't find this one anywhere: "400 Dragons" by Adrian John Loveridge. Not in iTunes, peer-to-peer, or ebay. (The closest I found with that name was by someone called Band of Thieves)(??)
Any song with the line "...send ten thousand Venus invaders and I'd shoot them all down for one night of your love" has *got* to be a keeper! I appreciate any direction someone could point me in! posted by g4zilla at 2:10 PM PST - 5 comments

I'm looking for a fast image viewer for Windows. It should preload upcoming images and let you advance to the next image before the current one finishes loading. I don't think the answer is Irfanview. [more inside]posted by Yogurt at 1:51 PM PST - 15 comments

There's a bit in, I'm sure, Foucault's Pendulum where one of the characters has attributed to her a heretical belief to the effect that one must experience all sins before being saved. It wasn't, I think, simply antinomianism. Is this an actual "respectable" heresy, and if so, what's it's name? posted by kenko at 12:00 PM PST - 8 comments

So, I've just started selling stuff on eBay again for the first time in years. I'm purging some of my excess geekness. I find the experience much more daunting than it was five years ago. What do I need to know?[more inside]posted by jdroth at 10:04 AM PST - 40 comments

I failed out of two colleges while attending as a traditional-aged student (teen-20's) for academic problems, but I do have many credits from the classes I managed to pass. As a 26-year-old adult, what are my chances for getting into a competitive school now that I have my head on straight and would like to return? I'm interested in studying linguistics, which is offered at only the toughest schools (UVA, William and Mary) in my state, and would need to stay in-state for financial, family, and health reasons. posted by juniper at 9:42 AM PST - 30 comments

Film buffs: I just watched Crash last night (I've now seen all the Best Picture nominees and feel soooo enriched). It reminded me of how very, very tired I am of the whole Random People's Lives Intersect Meaningfully genre, and it made me wonder how it got started. I know that the large-cast-intersecting gimmick is an Altman staple, but are there any precursors to his using it, or is it more or less his invention? Was Nashville where this whole thing began, or are there commonly-known, generally-acknowledged precedents for this genre? [more inside]posted by logovisual at 8:56 AM PST - 26 comments

When I was in NYC, I saw quite a spectacle of dozens (maybe up to 50?) of police going down 42nd St in a motorcade/caravan of sorts. A friend of mine said it was so they could quickly move though traffic to get from point A to point B. He said it was "operation something or another". (I am sure it was quite a show of policing prowess and tourists from Virginia can think they are safe.) Can someone please tell me what exactly it is called? The word is on the tip of my tongue and something like operation dazzle. Supposedly it is something rather common. posted by _zed_ at 7:50 AM PST - 10 comments

My young nephew came across an ancient Rubik's Cube last fall, and the time has come to give him a hand in solving it. Obviously, Google returns a wealth of solutions. What I'm looking for, though, is a solution that teaches a logical process for solving the cube, rather than the rote memorization of algorithms. If that doesn't exist, can someone recommend a guide that has animation, or sharply executed diagrams, or at the very least is well-written and free of initialisms? posted by boombot at 7:45 AM PST - 9 comments

Can someone give this HTML idiot an answer in plain English. I don't understand the responses on similar topics that are already on this site! Is there some way - preferably on BBEdit on the Mac - of automatically converting every instance of http://www.whateverurl.com in my html file into properly anchored code, ie: http://www.whateverurl.com? [more inside]posted by unclemonty at 6:21 AM PST - 11 comments

I have seen a drawing representing 72 music bands (with a zeppelin in the sky, a guy who is smashing pumpkins, etc.). The aim of the game is to identify these bands. I can't find it again on the web. Help me. posted by vincentm at 2:34 AM PST - 6 comments

February 6

I did a lot of freelance work last year but didn't keep good records. What's the best way to find out what I owe for 2005 & avoid the problem this year? [more inside]posted by octavia at 10:18 PM PST - 10 comments

I have a friend who has a Sony / BMG DualDisc of Nina Simone. Not only will the CD side of it not play in her Mac, the Mac spits it out immediately without even allowing you to access it from the desktop. What gives? Any way around this? She wants to get the songs onto her iPod. [more inside]posted by Manhasset at 10:07 PM PST - 12 comments

I recently installed Adobe InDesign CS2, and then had to uninstall it. When I tried to install it a second time, I get the message that I have to "personalize" my software (meaning put in the serial number again). The problem is it never works. All Adobe's help site says is that I have different language versions installed, but I don't. I've cleaned the registry (as far as I know) and searched for any remaining files but to no luck. How do I get it to work again? posted by Hall at 9:28 PM PST - 3 comments

I'm looking for examples of awesome-looking information displays. This can be anything from interesting OSs, "command center" control displays, and information software that is graphically impressive in its visual design. An information screen/program that makes you go "wow" on looks alone, whether public or proprietary. Any screenshots? I hope I'm describing this right. posted by zek at 9:23 PM PST - 13 comments

I am trying to find out the name of the singer of the theme song from the nineteen eighties animated series, "The Gummi Bears." I can find information on the lyricist and composer, but nothing on the singer. Ideally, I would like to know the names of some other songs he has sung. Thank you. posted by Java_Man at 8:09 PM PST - 27 comments

When a heavy drinker decides to quit, how long does it take for your body/face to permanently show the benefits of not over indulging and keeping a healthy diet ?
What I noticed is that when I go a week or 2 with no alcohol, my face looks puffy and drawn out. Just old. After I drink again, a normal healthy look returns to my face the next day. [more inside]posted by SwingingJohnson1968 at 7:09 PM PST - 20 comments

Is there a wiki program out there that supports tagging content pages? Ideally I'd like to be able to tag pages to make it easier to navigate. PHP preferred but not entirely necessary. posted by tkolstee at 5:28 PM PST - 4 comments

Final Cut Pro help: I'm taking over temporarily as assistant editor on a movie while the original assistant editor is off doing something else. I've been asked to make change lists between different versions of the movie using Final Cut Pro. [more inside]posted by shmegegge at 1:52 PM PST - 4 comments

My monitor started going light then dark, and now it's settled on a bit of both: in broad lines, according to whatever's darkest on that line, across any program showing. [more inside]posted by Tuwa at 12:21 PM PST - 9 comments

I've got a new Intel-based iMac to replace my G4 eMac. Is there any good eyecandy available in a Universal Binary? I sort of want to see it do something besides launch Safari really fast. posted by mph at 11:42 AM PST - 6 comments

My mother has an Acer LCD (model AL1715) hooked up to her Mac Mini. The warranty expired 3 days ago, and last night it woke up after being asleep for about 45 minutes with a black line across it - the image divided in such a way that the image has rolled - that is, the bottom is at the top and the top at the bottom, split not quite equal halves. Disconnecting and reconnecting don't work, powering off and back on don't work, changing the display mode on the mac doesn't work, and we can't find a reset button. Acer doesn't answer tech support phone calls (endless holds) or emails. Any ideas? posted by luriete at 11:21 AM PST - 6 comments

Can I claim compensation for a hotel room from UPS?
We have been forced to stay an extra night (at full cost) because UPS has not delivered a very important document. [more inside]posted by xoe26 at 10:52 AM PST - 28 comments

I need to move thousands of files (01_preview.jpg, 02_preview.jpg, 03_preview.jpg, etc.) into matching (pre-existing) folders whose names are basically the same as the filenames (folder names are 01, 02, 03, etc.) I'm on a Windows box. Is this a good job for a .BAT file? Can you help me write such a .BAT file? (Online tutorials for batch files have not helped me so far.) [more inside]posted by chr1sb0y at 10:18 AM PST - 15 comments

My friend is looking for employment for his significant other in Latin America or in the United States. She is a German citizen, and is a certified doctor there (OB/GYN). She is looking for a way to practice either there (in Latin America) or in the US for an underserved community. [more inside]posted by jare2003 at 10:01 AM PST - 5 comments